Tempus' Paladin
by Whimsical Symphony
Summary: "I'll protect you this time, Cloud. I'll make sure you'll never have to go through any of that again." Tifa is sent back in time when the battle against Sephiroth goes awry. Her goal is to stop the tragedy where it began: Genesis Rhapsodos. Time travel Genesis/Tifa
1. This Silent Sacrifice

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_After sticking around the FFVII fandom for quite a long while, I always had the urge to write a Time Travel story. Not once did I ever see one with Tifa though, and this idea was running rampant through my mind. It will be a Tifa/Genesis story, which will occur before the events of Crisis Core (because, of course, then Genesis would have already defected). The rating is M, to which I clarify is more because of gore than anything else, as I don't want to push the envelope when it comes to ratings. This is only a taste, and I think the blood and Yuffie's arms having been described as being "snapped like twigs" qualifies less as a T rating. There will be no lemons in this story, firstly because too vivid and they are against the guidelines, secondly because I have no need for them. Sex may or may not occur, but it will be implied, not described._

_I hope you enjoy this. The word count is drastically upped from my other stories by about 2000 words more per chapter (now approx. 5-5500 words per chapter) as I want to embody an epic feeling in my piece. It will be a long story with more description and sadness than anything, although there will be those humorous interactions between the characters. If I had to compare it to any one of my other writing styles it would be similar to in Proverbial Revitalization, but even then, way more upped in terms of description, formality, and imagery. I really pushed myself attempting to write this to at least create a good introduction. I only hope I do so well for future chapters. _

_Any comments and criticism is appreciated. I always answer back to anyone who tells me what they think._

* * *

**Chapter I ~ This Silent Sacrifice ~**

The sword stopped after a single sound of parting, a frightening pause, deafening as all sounds around them seemed to cease, a chilling end to a requiem played by an orchestra. Two parties stood still on the battleground, one the monster, frighteningly beautiful, an angel of death whose arms spread outward brilliantly, sword in hand, welcoming the other into the embrace of a sweet, silent misery. The other looked as if he wanted to speak, wanted to say anything, but one look at his body and he knew he accepted the misery the other brought as it destroyed his life, eating away at it like a million leeches sucking on human blood. Red spilled from his wound, a waterfall of rubies, strangely beautiful even while the fate of the world rested on his shoulders, even while its life dwindled away like a flickering light now that he failed.

"S-Sephiroth," he rasped as he kept his hands on Masamune, not seeking to pull it out, not seeking to do anything with it really.

He looked around him and felt the remorse fill up within the pit of his stomach, wondering if anyone ever predicted that at the end of his quest, he would fail, the hero of the story who took on the duty of giving the planet salvation. Even though he couldn't hear it cry – he remembered Aeris, the vivid descriptions she would paint him of the planet's cries, its wails of pain from what Shinra did. The very thought of meteor coming down scared Aeris more because of the pain it would face. The very selflessness of Aeris made him want to do this for her more than anyone, to kill Sephiroth, to send him back to the Lifestream. He knew that the male would appreciate that too; at least, the old Sephiroth would. He acted without any semblance of his former self, a different person, not just mad. Cloud liked to believe that the old him was within his body somewhere, telling Cloud to kill him, to release him – the old, kind General. He acted without control of his own actions, Cloud knew this. Maybe his admiration for Sephiroth stood in the way of his goal. It became pity for the man, to see how far he had fallen, once a brave hero who he wanted to be like, then the villain he had to destroy.

Then there was Zack, his best friend who died trying to save him. Cloud wanted to save the planet that Zack tried so hard to keep him on, alive. Zack didn't know that Cloud admired him more than Sephiroth himself. Cloud never considered himself a hero, not once. Instead, he looked at Zack's Buster Sword briefly, laying in his hand loosely from his limp arm, he considered himself a substitute, fulfilling Zack's goals of being a hero where he couldn't. That was what drove him more than anything, filling in Zack's life when it had been taken from him so prematurely.

He looked at all his friends who lay around them like dolls, arms in strange positions, blood gushing from them, almost similar to him, their eyes glazed over. He saw Barret, normally so gruff and strong, laying limply against the wall, lifeless. Yuffie, normally so spunky and full of life, now completely the opposite as her arms looked like they had been snapped as simply as twigs, bruises of the deepest colours marring her arms, legs and face. A smile remained still, aimed toward the demon that looked after her. Vincent lay beside her, weak but alive, looking at Yuffie's body, that enough to break his mind. Cloud knew that mental trauma of that kind was more dangerous than any physical harm. He already experienced it once, and didn't need to again. Cid's spear impaled him on the rocky face of the wall and Nanaki's tail burned out. Cait Sith ceased to move and Cloud only wondered what Reeve thought now.

Cloud spared a last glance at Tifa, her lips trembled, her eyes wide open with shock as she called something, his name most probably, but at this time, when the world was about to end, on the edge of a cliff as they took their last tumble, he couldn't hear her. Her lips moved and her tears spilled for him. She covered her limp arm with her other hand, and her leg was broken, yet it seemed all her tears for her own pain, her own agony, dried up. Cloud only hoped he could manage to move his lips one last time into a smile for her. He hated himself for only realizing at the end how much he neglected her when Tifa dedicated her entire life to him, throwing away what could have been a peaceful life in Midgar possibly. Tifa loyally remained by him, never once showing him her pain, comforting him when he showed his vulnerability.

He wanted to show her the same care she showed him, but couldn't.

She screamed for him as his eyes shut slowly, feeling the wisps of Sephiroth's tendrils of silver hair as they brushed along his skin, given flight by air currents, a refreshing feeling in the last minutes of his life.

"Farewell, Cloud Strife," the angel of death spoke, his voice void of emotion, any madness, any anger, any vengeful tone. Cloud was thankful.

And it was at that moment where the planet's fate was set in stone, and Cloud Strife, its last hope, its Messiah, died.

* * *

It was the moment when Cloud died that Tifa felt Masamune's touch upon her, as painful as it had been back in Nibelheim, a phantom gliding across where it cut her on her skin, a prickly eerie feeling just as cool and sharp as the metal of the sword had been. She felt it like Cloud felt it that deadly pain. She wondered how he felt about dying, what he thought before he closed his eyes, before he gave her a slight smile. All of their comrades lay dead around them, even Vincent, whose body covered Yuffie's, protecting her even though he just recently passed.

Tifa was alone, without a single person to help her or relieve her emotional pain for her own death which approached her, closer and closer, the unavoidable Grim Reaper which hid in shrouds of darkness.

Her own tears dried up, her heart felt numb, not even the now dull throb of her entire body seemed to shake her. The thought only hit her then – it was all over, and she stood alive at the world's end, would drown with Gaia in a pool of darkness, an endless ocean of sorrow, anguish and torment filled with distorted versions of the planet's wails. None of her friends would be with her. Cloud wouldn't be with her. No one would be.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you," Tifa whispered, though no one could hear her – all were dead and Sephiroth in the crazed madness he succumbed to wouldn't care to listen to her, to hear her pleas, to stop what he was doing. Sephiroth who burned down their home, killed her father and nearly killed her, killed Cloud. Her tears spilled hopelessly, crystals amidst the darkness, the only beautiful thing in a hellhole like this.

Then, the strangest thing happened right when she gave up. Cloud's body, held up grotesquely by Sephiroth's blade began to glow, green, vivid like the Lifestream as it surrounded him and embraced him. Time itself seemed to stop at the world's end.

The Lifestream exiting from Cloud's own body engulfed everything, Tifa included, then suddenly, she didn't feel her pain anymore, just the dull ache of her emotional pain, a knife against her mind, drawing figurative blood. When she looked around, she was in a world of green that felt strangely comfortable, sympathetic and forgiving for her sins, for not having the skill or ability to do more for Cloud, her friends, to save Aeris. Tifa fell into that embrace, the only embrace she could get, it seemed.

* * *

"_Tifa,"_ the voice called, a sweet flute merging with the destruction in her mind, the slashes of Sephiroth's sword, the way his lips would pull themselves into a positively delighted expression, his eyes wide with glee when they saw human blood, the way the flames surrounding the buildings of Nibelheim would lick his frame, his skin, almost as if offering him their friendship as they destroyed everything else under his command.

"_**Tifa**__," _the voice called again, bearing the scent of flowers, familiar to her indefinitely. That voice like the ringing of wind chimes in the spring air. That scent, it was all familiar to her. She opened her eyes slowly, noticing the oncoming light which was so unfitting, such a contrast to where she was, a battle in darkness where they all bled and died to try to save Gaia.

Tifa looked around her and noted solid walls of glowing green, the Lifestream, complete with floors. The room, it seemed to be, was completely devoid of anything but a throne that the Lifestream constructed, still moving, travelling all around the room with serpentine grace. A woman sat upon the throne, regal, blonde hair and armour beyond that even given to royalty. Her expression remained blank, and her skin even seemed to glow. Tifa knew she was a deity just by looking at her.

"Tifa," the voice came again, much closer than before, almost touching her until she saw it, Aeris, looking just as beautiful and dainty as she did before she died stepping in from the wall of Lifestream. A smile lay on her face and it was that smile, Tifa remembered, which made her think that just for a little while, everything was _okay_. It didn't matter that everyone died, that Cloud died, that she sat in a corner unable to do anything to help him in his battle, that she watched the man she loved with all her heart _die_ in such a terrible way, so cruel and heartless as his body dangled on Masamune, limp as a rag doll. Tifa felt her eyes burn, the dull throb as her nails bit into her palm as she tried to harness her anger, her pain, her guilt for everything which transpired.

She still remembered the nights they all spent together just chatting as if the world had not been about to end, laughing, trying in any way to keep the tears at bay, to stay happy if only for a bit longer. When Nanaki would tell them stories about him and his Grandpa, Bugenhagen, when Aeris would giggle as Yuffie teased Vincent, the latter would scowl and pretend he didn't care when he cared a lot about what Yuffie thought, when Cait Sith would attempt to read their futures and fail, when Barrett and Cid would simultaneously curse and swear at Yuffie when she playfully snagged something of theirs, when she cooked food for them and watched the joy on their faces as they consumed whatever she made. Those were the times when Cloud actually looked happy, not when he awoke in a cold sweat from nightmares, not when he seemed so unresponsive to anything. Those days seemed so far away now, like broken dreams flying away on the wings of a butterfly, elusive and untouchable, sacred memories that seemed more like idyllic artwork, surreal in some way.

Aeris stood beside the blonde woman's throne as she began to speak, her voice strong and commanding. "Gaia, now that Cloud Strife has died, stands no chance against its fate. It will die." Even though she said this with such nonchalance, her expression betrayed a little sadness because of this, her lips drawn into a tight line, her gaze downcast. Just as quickly she recovered and addressed Tifa again. "I am Minerva, Goddess of Gaia. I want to save this planet, this is the most I can do."

Tifa looked confused and Aeris elaborated. "We asked Cloud, but we can't talk to him, he chose not to hear us," she whispered sadly, but then shook her head, continuing. "Using the Lifestream, Minerva can send you back in time, back to where it all began." The very thought made her smile a little, and Tifa again reminded herself of the days where everything seemed fine. "Don't you see? Everything can be prevented, no one will have to die, Cloud can grow up without having to go through anything he had to go through. Even Sephiroth, no matter how terrible the things he did, he can live his life as the General without the influence of Jenova." Aeris paused. "Zack wouldn't have to die either…"

The thought was appealing, the idea that Meteor would never fall, that Sephiroth would never go crazy, that Cloud could grow up and have a normal life with his best friend by his side. And, she thought, there was nothing in the world outside awaiting her but a dead planet and dead friends who would be much better off alive and well, for her state and for theirs. She had to ask though, so said, "You said… you asked Cloud?" Even the thought that she spoke to Gaia's Goddess didn't matter to her, she had to know.

"We were unable to retrieve Cloud's subconscious from the Lifestream," Minerva explained. "He has… been through too much. He shut his heart away, not wanting to go through the same pain again as its hero, much rather wanting to live life eternally within the Lifestream's embrace, even if it would disappear with Gaia. Cloud's mind has broken from everything that he has went through, being experimented on, having his friend die, having to watch Aeris die, and having to fight and potentially kill the man he once admired and still pities through his distaste and hate. It is now in a constant state of disarray, of pain," she continued, "then we chose you." Each word hit her like a knife. Gaia's hero, Cloud, broke. The strain had been too much, he had been only human after all, not some God, it had been bound to happen eventually.

Tifa saw the progress of it slowly, from the beginning to the end, the beginning of when his mind broke to the end, the nightmares, when he would try to make himself busy to distract himself from everything – nothing would work, of course. Her presence beside him, to try to make him feel better, went sadly unnoticed.

"You have experienced pain by Shinra, you know what went on within that company, you have knowledge of it," Minerva continued to explain. "You can stop it, stop everything. You were the next suitable person to become Gaia's hero, no, heroine. This is the only way the planet can live on." She looked at the expression on Tifa's face, solemn, deep in thought. "We choose you to help this planet live on anew, though no one will remember you, though you have a predestined fate to enter SOLDIER – the pain will be great."

".._no one will remember you_…"

".._**no one will remember you**_…"

The thought itself made her shiver, made her collapse on her hands and knees and just cry. "They won't remember," she muttered brokenly. The very thought she would enter SOLDIER, years in the past, and meet Cloud and have him not remember what they had been through was too painful to fathom. Tifa Lockhart would be the neighbor girl of Cloud who talked to him on occasion, gave him a friendly hello and became somewhat of a friend to him when he had none. But she wouldn't be the girl who stood by him when times were tough, when it seemed bleak, when it seemed as if all their efforts might as well have not even been attempted. She would be _this _Tifa Lockhart trapped in a time with only _that _Cloud.

Aeris embraced her fully as she cried, her tears soaking themselves on the red of her bolero and she whispered, "There will always be new memories to be formed."

That was what did it for her when she said, "I'll do it." To save Cloud from all the emotional pain, to make new memories bright and beautiful and more brilliant than any Materia.

"Thank you, Tifa," Aeris told her, a soft smile upon her pink lips. "I know you'll be able to save everyone." She kept her arms around her as everything started to fade. "Be friends with me there too, okay? Farewell and may we meet again in another life."

Tifa could only nod as Minerva's voice resounded through the area. She saw her face, a pleased smile on those lips, looking proud of Tifa, proud of what she had said. "Remember, to save everyone, it all started with a man by the name of Genesis Rhapsodos, First-Class SOLDIER." She let the name sink in to Tifa before she raised her arms, cringing slightly as all the power from within the Lifestream engulfed her. "I will give you these to help you."

Tifa felt it, a stabbing pain in her skull as she let out an agonizing scream, the movement of figures in her mind, of Cloud joining Shinra, of him laying eyes upon Sephiroth for the first time, a generally kind man, becoming friends with Zack. Cloud lay within her head asleep – these were his memories.

"Remember, Genesis Rhapsodos," the voice said, distorted as the lights surrounded her still, as the pain in her skull grew duller but still present. "Goodbye, Tifa Lockhart – may your journey succeed, for your sake as well as Gaia's."

Everything faded and Tifa fell into a slumber, no longer being held by Aeris, yet she felt comforted. Then it all hit her and a deep sadness resonated through her heart. It took all the power of the Lifestream to send her back, to kill this timeline and send her to another, the reason why she couldn't feel Aeris' embrace anymore. That Aeris died because of this, no, was more like deleted, not even present in the Lifestream anymore. Minerva, Goddess of Gaia, died because of this.

Her decision to be sent back caused the destruction of Gaia as well, the only difference from Sephiroth's method if destruction being the hope that Gaia would flourish again anew like a baby phoenix from ashes. Aeris, she hopes, was within Tifa's heart still, Minerva as well.

"_Farewell and may we meet again in another life," _Aeris said with a smile, holding her tightly to numb and alleviate all of her pain, her bruises, her scars.

"_Goodbye, Tifa Lockhart – may your journey succeed, for your sake as well as Gaia's," _the Goddess said as she gave her essence, Gaia's essence, to send Tifa back.

"Thank you, Aeris, Goddess Minerva," Tifa whispered into the nothingness surrounding her, hoping that they could hear her last words. She had a feeling they did.

_Even if the morrow is barren of promises,_

_Nothing shall forestall my return._

_To become the dew that quenches the land,_

_To spare the sands, the seas, the skies_

_I offer thee this silent sacrifice._

Tifa heard it recited in the darkness by a deep, poetic voice. Minerva left it for her. They heard her voice. She would accept that silent sacrifice.

* * *

Tifa awoke in her own bed back in Nibelheim. She distinctly remembered its texture, its softness and the sweet scent of her grandmother's handmade quilt on top of all her blankets. Looking at her bed, she mused at what a child she had been, the stuffed animals laying near the sides of her bed, a large stuffed bunny on one end and a bear on the other. Her room was neat, and had jewellery she wouldn't dream of bringing with her when she had been on the road, and perfume she would never have had access too along with makeup arranged in sets on her dresser. It was the typical room of a teenage girl when she was anything but.

Getting up, she walked around and familiarized herself with a room she had not seen in its original form since many years prior to when she saw Cloud again. Looking at the calendar, she noted the date to be about eight years before she set out on her journey to chase the Black-Caped Man. She brushed her fingers over the red marks she made on it, circling one particular date which marked the departure of the boys from the village – they all wanted to join Shinra, they all left. It had been merely the night before they left when she remembered making that promise with Cloud that he would come save her when she was in danger. He did much more than that, while she could only feel ashamed that she had not done the same for him.

"I'll protect you this time, Cloud. I'll make sure you'll never have to go through any of that again," she promised, taking a deep breath as she headed to the window.

Tifa saw all the boys wandering around town just like she remembered it, all the boys from the village who wanted to become like General Sephiroth, just like Cloud. They all rolled luggage bags behind them and all looked nervous as they waited near the front of the village for the Shinra Recruit Vans to arrive and take them to Midgar where they would train as grunts hoping to make it into SOLDIER. Today was that day Cloud would leave the village too. It was the day Tifa has to leave as well, with them.

Moving to the body-length mirror she had in the room and grabbing a pair of scissors off her dresser, she mused briefly that it was no loss if she cut her hair off and became a boy. There would be no change really. When was the last time she lived her life as woman, she could barely remember it. Not even when she worked at the bar did she really. Tifa never indulged in her appearance since when she was in her mid-teens like now. Cloud barely saw her as a woman to put the icing on the cake.

So she snipped and snipped, her black locks falling to the ground like soot-filled snow until she cut it to about the length of Yuffie's hair. Suddenly, she felt free, like all the burdens of life lifted themselves off of her shoulders, even though she knew they only began now, her attempts from stopping everything from happening, to find First-Class SOLDIER, Genesis Rhapsodos, and stop him from causing Sephiroth to go insane. From him going insane? How… her skull hurt again as she saw it, a man, Genesis, disclosing the truth to Sephiroth at the Nibelheim reactor, setting the events in motion which would destroy Gaia.

_Poor little Sephiroth... You've never actually met your mother - you've only been told her name, no? I don't know what images you've conjured up in your head, but JENOVA was excavated from a 2000 year old rock layer. She's a monster._

Cloud's memories lay within her still, Cloud helped her still even though not physically.

She would find out his motives behind everything, stop him from doing it.

Tifa took large rolls of bandages she had in her cupboard and took off her clothes then. Slowly, she began to bind her chest as securely as possible reminding herself there was no change in how she acted before versus her appearance now. She just thanked herself for having a smaller, easier to hide chest years ago. Pulling on a zippered vest, shorts and some running shoes, she found herself ready. She passed for a man, albeit an effeminate one. She could instead shorten her name to just Teef, like what Barret and Cloud called her – it seemed more manly then anyway. She would be used to answering that way. None of the other boys from Nibelheim would even suspect it was her, with her short hair now and the fierce 'manly' expression she held on her face. She doubted they would. There were not that many Nibelheim grunts and they would probably be diluted along the much larger percentage of those from Midgar and Junon and they would be preoccupied with not failing the program and watching out with eager eyes for a glimpse of Sephiroth.

Packing some of the more unisex clothes she had in her dresser into a small luggage bag and packing a spare pair of fighting gloves into them after strapping another on her hands, then stuffing rolls of cash into a messenger bag, which she had plenty of as the mayor's daughter, she took off, not even bothering to leave a note for her father. She waited a distance away from the other cadets before she snuck in the back of one of the vans to be safe. He never was around much. She doubted he cared.

If she left him a note, she wasn't sure if she would change her decision. The repeated nightmares of Sephiroth stabbing him, killing him, played like a broken record, clung to the edges of her mind as she slept.

She had to prevent that, even if she would never see him again. Just to know that his life had been preserved, even if he lived part of it worrying for her or hating her – that's all that mattered.

Her journey to Midgar started as she signed in with one of the helmeted cadets standing beside each of the vans as they rolled in. She sat beside one of the Nibelheim recruits, not saying a word and only placed her chin in her hands, waiting for the van to start. The boys chattered amongst themselves, looking excited.

"You think we might be able to talk to Sephiroth?" one of them asked.

"It'll be easy once we become a First-Class SOLDIER! It can't be that bad, how hard can it be?" another replied.

Tifa wanted to tell them not to underestimate it. She saw Sephiroth fight, it was beautiful, graceful like a leaping dolphin, not one single movement out of place or unnecessary, a dance. That was the power of a First-Class SOLDIER, it would be harder than they thought.

* * *

When they reached Midgar, the metropolis she was familiar with, but never fond of, they were told to exit the van. It rolled to a firm stop in front of the Shinra Building. Its foreboding appearance never changed even from years before, still large, still designed to look superior compared to everything else, to be a monument in a field of useless ants – which was definitely how Shinra saw its people. At the very top, Tifa wondered what President Shinra, that disgusting pig, did to occupy his time. He would never know that if time continued on the way it had, Sephiroth would kill him. It shamed her to think her work to save Cloud, save everyone, included saving President Shinra.

"Alright grunts, head inside and there'll be a presentation that you'll have to watch," one of the recruits stated, looking less than pleased he had to watch them all. Still, she did as he said with as much distaste as she could manage. Working for Shinra wasn't how she ever imagined her life to be, ever. She followed the chattering mob of hopeful someday-SOLDIER's inside to the large open space she remembered breaking into when the group needed to go rescue Aeris. Tifa still regretted that she pulled the girl into it, but if not for her then Marlene would have been…

"Welcome cadets, to the Shinra company," a male voice spoke, commanding, befitting of a leader of some great army. Tifa snapped out of her reverie and looked at the man who spoke, a well-groomed man with blonde hair, glasses, wearing a neat pinstriped blazer. He didn't seem to radiate the dishonesty that most Shinra executives seemed to. He seemed strangely honest in his ways, almost too good hearted to be in a company like this. "I am Lazard, Director of SOLDIER."

Tifa never knew SOLDIER had a director, and judging by the looks on the other cadets, they didn't know either. The sharp, splitting pain in her head returned again and she couldn't help but manage a grunt of pain. Her mind was all fuzzy, convoluted like a mosh pit, ridiculously intertwined, yet strangely, clearer than ever.

"_Zack, it seems like this will be the first time we've meet. I am Executive Manager of the SOLDIER Department," Lazard explained._

_Zack grinned, as per usual of him, "It's a pleasure!"_

Tifa saw it, Zack's memories. Had she received some of those along with Cloud's? The fact that she had his best friend's memories as well seemed almost too intimate to her, too intimate indeed. It made her question why she was chosen at all, someone who could never have his feelings returned to her.

"Oi, grunt, shape up. If you're like this you'll never make it past Basic Training." An elbow shoved into her side harshly and just as she was about to glare at whoever did it, she noticed why he did. A light sheen of sweat covered her arms, a reaction to the pain, and she felt and looked as if she were about to keel over.

"Sorry, I must've not gotten enough sleep last night," she whispered, standing tall, telling him he need not worry.

"Sleep isn't a good excuse," he replied harshly, looking toward the front again.

A couple of the other cadets also looked at her strangely, to which she just looked forward at Lazard once again, trying to ignore the dull throb of her forehead.

"Thank you for deciding to join us, you are our hope for the future, some of you will become great SOLDIERs," Lazard told them a small smile on his face. "Great SOLDIER's like our First-Classes whose power is matched by none. Like, General Sephiroth who has led our armies multiple times to war, who has destroyed armies with one finger." Though this seemed to be an exaggeration, Tifa thought different after seeing his power, after feeling his sword upon her skin, cutting mercilessly into her flesh, drawing blood, creating irreparable scars, pink, raw, ugly. "Like Angeal Heweley whose honour makes him a fine SOLDIER of Shinra, whose mediation is unmatched and whose power is formidable. And like Genesis Rhapsodos, charismatic and deadly in battle, with magic and Materia, a fine SOLDIER indeed."

"I hope I can be like any one of them, I mean, they're all so great, those three," the recruit beside her whispered. She could see he was more nervous than excited, so she put a hand on his shoulder.

"All you can do is try," Tifa said lamely, and strangely enough, saying that cleared up her own mind. There was no point feeling sad or pressured because of what was about to occur. _All she could do was try, _try to stop things before they happened, try to protect Cloud, shelter him from the cruelties that his future would bring, save Zack who died, save Aeris, save everyone. All she could do was try. Her last chance loomed upon her, no other alternatives. She had to try, she had to succeed.

The cadet looked at her with a thankful smile. Tifa felt more thankfulness towards him, for making everything sink in so well like water in a sponge.

* * *

_Word Count: 5 106_


	2. Memories

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_I had this bit prewritten, so it might be a week or two for my next update. A lot of memories for Tifa in this chapter, she meets her roommates and an introduction to our three favourite First Classes. I actually think that I wrote Genesis pretty well this time – whenever I've written him before, he's always been too charming and not bratty enough, when now the bratty trait overshadows his charm. I did have some problems though, such as I'm not sure whether she connected with her roommates enough. They're going to stand with her through thick and thin even though they have no clue she's a girl. They have something in common too. _

_In any case, your thoughts are greatly appreciated whether they be good, bad or ugly – I can take any criticism in stride. Hit me with your worst. I hope you enjoy the chapter._

* * *

**Chapter II ~ Memories ~**

Tifa looked at the sheet of paper in her hands, a schedule they had gotten assigned after that presentation by Lazard, director of SOLDIER. She wondered where Cloud had gone off to, whether they would be in any classes together, how he would react when he saw her hair short, every feminine bit of her body skillfully covered up, discarded as if it never existed like a candy wrapper useless from the beginning, begging to be thrown away. Tifa wished somewhere inside that he would be a little forlorn at the least that the girl who lived in his town now had to live life as a male, at least, for the majority of Shinra's population so she could stay in the program. But perhaps he wouldn't be at all. Cloud never saw her as a woman, just a girl who lived in his hometown, then a member of his team, his comrade that he cared for no more, no less than the others.

Tifa liked that equality and fairness he showed to them all, but at the same time, she wondered if he ever realized the true extent of her feelings for him, like an extending rubber band, stretching far beyond its limit, with the risk of snapping at any moment, painfully stinging the wrist it bound itself to. She thought not, not even bitterly, Cloud always had been a bit of an emotional failure, oblivious to most feelings but his own. He never gave her any indication that he knew. Never. She was thankful, but then again, she wasn't at the same time. How would life have differed if she let him knew? She knew already she would be shot down, but at the least, would he see her as a woman?

She walked down the hallway briskly, rolling her luggage behind her, sighing at all the depressing thoughts which mounted their way through her head, creating a stampede of words, memories and thoughts, a mixture of colours on a palette, and a composition of notes all minor key. She knew as well, she did not want to give him more to think about. Cloud broke. She did not want to be the cause of that, and if keeping her feelings inside would heal him, she would.

Opening the door to what would be her room in the cadet barracks, shared with three other people, Tifa wondered what to expect. Unlike Cloud, she never had been part of Shinra, she had no clue what to expect from training, whether she would do well, whether she would do poorly, or anything about it. Now she had the added problem of concealing her gender from anyone she met, to be Cadet Tifa Lockhart, a male grunt the same as anyone else, hoping to become a First-Class SOLDIER. Tifa betted all her chances on her fighting prowess so she could quickly go through the ranks – the only chance she had of meeting First-Class Genesis Rhapsodos, to meet Zack, Second-Class now.

The room was dark and dingy, as would be expected of low paid members of the military. Tifa placed her luggage near the corner near her chosen bunk. She thought oddly of someone like Sephiroth sleeping somewhere like this back in his days of being a cadet, if those days ever existed after all. He seemed much too regal for the shoebox sized room with two bunk beds and barely enough space to move around in, let alone sleep and live in. Beside each bed, when she walked in was a small box. Taking her pick of beds and its respective box since she had been the first to arrive, she sat on it, box in her lap and slowly opened the lid.

"Reminds me of the cargo ship," Tifa said, a little amused. Inside, the cadet uniform lay folded neatly, the same blue she remembered it as when she had such fun on the cargo ship, when all of them decided to dress up as members of the Shinra military, underneath was the more casual uniform, she inferred. Tifa remembered laughing when she saw Nanaki, his tail sticking out the back, attempting to walk on two legs and pass off as a human. It seemed to work too, as no one made one comment about it. "It only did make me think they were a little stupid."

And making fun of Shinra during their travels had been one of those forced fun-times which kept them going when things seemed dark and bleak, when they tried to recover after facing Jenova on the cargo ship, for one.

The door opened and Tifa looked up from the box. Her three roommates entered, who looked with eager eyes upon their beds even though they were anything but fancy, who seemed excited to start the trainee program. Tifa couldn't blame them, she saw how the boys in her own town reacted, and even she grew excited at the prospect that she might know a SOLDIER, if Cloud ever became one, to have that SOLDIER save her when she was in danger.

She shouldn't have at all, that puny amount of greed, selfishness she acquired at that age, back when she'd been more pampered, less rough and tough like now. Now, the lack of space indicated no room for luxury and because of that, she had the care for Cloud to not care in the last whether he made it to SOLDIER. By the time he came to Nibelheim on that fateful mission with Shinra and hid his face from her, she passed the phase where she cared about his rank.

Cloud was home safe, which the only thing which mattered to her.

The possibility grew in her mind from the deepest, darkest depths of shadow that he could die in battle. His body could lie on the battleground, trampled upon, multiple bullet wounds and blood gushing from torn flesh layered like an onion, jagged edges never pieced together like a torn stuffed animal. Then, in time his flesh would turn putrid, mummified and that body of his had a chance of never being found. The thought frightened her beyond belief, forced her to grow up and care for him as she should have long ago.

"It's kind of small, don't ya think?" one male exclaimed. His hair oddly reminded her of Reno, a mane of red, though in much less of a state of disarray, actually combed and neatly put into a ponytail. He chose the bunk bed adjacent to hers, and in similar taste to her own, chose the bottom bunk, though she suspected not for the same reasons.

The feeling of being near the bottom gave her more security, helped her chase of the nightmares when they resurfaced in her mind, terrible and hot, burning, damaging like a Mako reactor explosion she caused back in her days in AVALANCHE.

"What can you expect, Kris," another said, scoffing. "We're newbies in the Shinra army. They're not going to give us anything good until we prove ourselves by getting into SOLDIER." The down to earth (and slightly pessimistic) one it seemed like. His hair shocked her, down to his lower back, raven hair braided neatly without a hair out of place. His clothes, ruffled and tied, neatly pressed, Tifa would not be surprised if he came from a wealthy family somewhere.

"Guys stop arguing, our last roommate's looking at us funny." The last male approached her and stuck out a hand for her to shake, which she did, still slightly confused that they went from conversing with one another straight to her. He grinned and Tifa noticed two distinct dimples on his cheeks filled with baby fat he hadn't yet outgrown. Blonde hair and blue eyes, Tifa solemnly thought he reminded her of a younger Cloud. "Hey roomie! I'm Taioh," he greeted, "the one with the nice as hell clothes is Lucian," he gestured toward the second male who spoke, who spared her little more than a glance, "and the stupid one is Kris." Kris protested vehemently at that and Tifa chuckled in response, reminding herself not to lose her way because of old memories – she had a goal to focus on now. "Who're you?"

"I'm Teef Lockhart," she introduced herself with a grin. "Nice to meet you."

"Teef, huh?" he replied with a confused look on his face.

"A bit of a girly name, don't you think?" Lucian elaborated giving her a suspicious glance looking at her face, and then her body. Tifa couldn't help but scowl. "A girly face and one… scrawny figure. You have to be a woman; there's no other alternative."

Tifa sat up and approached Lucian, to which Taioh and Kris had no blue in what manner to react. "Takes one to know one, Lucian." She looked him down from head to toe. "You don't look all that fit either, you just smell like money. Your name too, actually." Tifa punched him in the arm, hard enough to bruise, not hard enough to cause any permanent damage. Even so, she felt the slight strain, the backlash on her own fist which, in her old time, she grew long immune to. She already predicted that her muscles had not developed nearly enough – she still attended training with Zangan at this age. Her experience definitely outmatched what her body could do. Lucian winced, and frowned. "So much for girly, huh?"

Lucian simply scoffed but said no more before he climbed up the ladder to the top bunk of Kris' bed and lay in his bed, silent, attempting to get some much needed rest to prepare for the long day ahead of them tomorrow. Before long, he was out like a light. Tifa didn't want him on the top bunk of hers anyway – his personality needed some work.

Kris looked a bit nervous, then spoke to her, a bit apologetic. "Sorry for Lucian, he's always like that."

Taioh climbed on the top bunk of Tifa's bed and placed his luggage near the side like Tifa did and said, "Lucian's always grown up in a wealthy family and he doesn't warm up to other people easily. We lived below the plate, not prime candidates to meet someone like him, you know? Well you might not, huh? I don't think you're from Midgar, but every day's a struggle to live down there. You have to fight tooth and nail for survival. I got pretty good at fighting that way, protected Kris too." Kris nodded in agreement, looking a bit glum.

Taioh would have no idea that Tifa did know, first hand, what living below the plate was like, the dusty, pathless construction, a thoughtless, failed imitation of what live above the plate was like from those who were envious of the way that higher class citizens could live in the metropolis and throw away money like excess trash. Below the plate, every building, every home and every action knew no independence, manipulated by the strings of broken dreams.

People moved to Midgar thinking they would be living the high class life in the Mako city, only to be crushed and forgotten, living below the plate where crimes were an everyday occurrence, rape, theft, brutal assaults and murder. If she hadn't learned martial arts, she would have fallen, a red target painted on her from working at the bar as well. Soon, Tifa grew desensitized to the feeling of seeing dead people in alleyways, corpses, eyes glazed over, looking blankly at the stars hoping for any kind of salvation from slum life. She tried hard to protect them when she could, but she could only do so much. The feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her, a dark feeling constructed of newsprint, black and greys – and then, unlike some of the slum dwellers who would turn to trying to work for Shinra to get above the plate, she grew to resent them, what they were doing, everything. To put children like Marlene through it all, unforgiveable.

"_Shit, Teef, I tol' you not to work at this time o' night!" the burly man scolded her, looking cross, shaking in anger as he looked at the bruises on her arms, bright pinks and purples. Marlene hid behind her leg, eyes downcast, not wanting to look at the bodies surrounding them, knocked unconscious. _

_Tifa turned away from the man in front of her and knelt on the floor, giving Marlene a small smile. "Hey, Marlene - how about you go play in the back room okay? I have some stuffed animals that I got for you." Almost immediately did Marlene grin, large and toothily before she nodded and skipped to the back room to play as Tifa said. The woman turned to look at Barret and gave him a weak smile. "You know I can't help it. I have to earn money, this is the only way."_

"_Goddamn Shinra, makin' us live like this! Damn those punks for comin' in all the time! Shit!" Barret cursed and threw an empty glass on the bar table at the wall. The crash resounded through the building and Barret trembled, hating more and more the feeling of seeing Tifa injured. She looked at him calmly, just a smile on her face as if she already knew to expect that from him. "Thanks fo' protectin' Marlene when I couldn't be there."_

"_It's okay, Marlene is important to me too," Tifa replied genuinely. Marlene kept her company where no one else did, helped ease away the pain of loneliness eating through her, parasitic in nature, using her as a host to fulfil their dreams of taking over the lives of those who lived below the plate._

"_Teef," Barret said, his voice unusually soft, concerned, "Jus', take care o' yourself…" Tifa knew that would be the most outward showing of concern she ever got from the prickly man, but she never minded. Him showing anger proved he cared about her well-being, her condition where not many others did besides Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. Barret stiffened noticeably after that and turned back toward the entrance of the bar. His back faced her, his voice held less of that anger now that he managed to let it out. "I gotta go out on some business," he said. "Remin' me to pay outta my pocket fo' that glass." Then he exited wordlessly._

_Tifa smiled, glad that the man cared. He didn't need to know that she would never accept his money that he saved up, mostly for Marlene._

It made her sad thinking about Barret, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. So she stopped, allowing the fogginess within her own mind to take over once more, bringing her back to the present, blocking her access to the despair which lay within thinking she would never see Barret again. The thought made her feel better when she remembered Biggs, Wedge and Jessie were alive now at the least, she could still remember Barret's wails of agony, resounding through the ruined playground like banshees in the night, telling them of death, of new sorrow.

"Lucian ran away from home, didn't receive the best treatment from his Ma' and Pa'," Taioh continued laying on his back, fingering the small chain around his neck. "He ended up below the plate and met me and Kris fighting off one of those fiends near the Train Graveyard, it looked pretty bad. We wanted to get some loot for us to pawn off. Kris and I had no parents, we stuck together like brothers. I got a scar that reminds me of how close it'd been."

For some reason, the story resonated within her. These people lived a similar life to her, like a mirror, fighting for that same survival she fought for. Tifa understood how hard it was to earn a living. She even pitied the punks who came in day by day attempting to raid her bar and steal what little gil she hid away. Tifa never killed them, only knocked them out, only to see them return a few days later with more men than before. She had to get the bruises sometime, the purple patches which signified how weak she had been, marring skin that, if she lived above the plate would have been normal, unblemished. The girl who lived in Nibelheim died, no longer girly and vain, just focusing on how to make a living for her, her friends and Marlene, to focus on how to save the planet from its ever approaching demise, a ticking time bomb, a grandfather clock's _tick tock, tick tock_ in a room of white, echoing from wall to wall.

"Lucian saved us though, helped us when we'd been about to die," Kris chimed in. "After that, he came to the bottom plate pretty often, making excuses to his parents, till eventually, he told them he wanted to join Shinra. They agreed and he secretly brought us along. His parents would never agree with friends like us, we're not really of his status. We… we just want to make a living, so we took the opportunity for him to, with his status, be able to take us above the plate." He looked not in the least bit sad at this, grinning like a child. "But, we've always been like brothers anyway. He's always taken care of us, though he's a bit cold about it. His parents never taught him how to get along with people really. His silence when he reacts to you means he's acknowledged you."

"But enough of that, what about you, Teef, where're you from?" Taioh asked. She found herself connecting to her roommates and even understood Lucian's behavior to some degree. At least now she knew he didn't detest her. He seemed like a good enough person if he managed to be one of the few who would stop and help slum dwellers. Many of the richer folk wouldn't, choosing instead to walk past and act as if they didn't see anything.

"Well, I'm from Nibelheim…" Tifa said, and found herself recounting some of her life in the old town with these people who she just met, complete strangers who she somehow just felt like talking to in a world which seemed so cold and desolate. In just a little while, the nightmares were warded off like bugs by insect repellant. The bad thoughts which swam in her mind like athletes going strong suddenly drowned in a whirlpool of light, cleansing her mind, giving way to tranquility. It reminded her of that same warmth of Goddess Minerva and Aeris, their silent sacrifice.

* * *

Tifa woke up a little earlier than everyone else in her room, giving herself little over an hour to quickly change, eat breakfast in the mess hall, then run to class and be the perfect Shinra cadet. She woke up feeling weak, a little groggy and desperately wanted to hit her head against the wall in hopes that it would drive the pain away.

She wondered why, memories ran through her head with such clarity, her mind, like a piece of cloth, stained by scalding tea, the liquid seeping into the fabric. It hurt. She wondered if Minerva planned this. Tifa shook her head.

"No point thinking about it – it's probably just a side effect," Tifa muttered. She didn't even want to think about the fact that she came in contact with the Lifestream. If not in her current body, not being sent through time, would she have ended up like Cloud did, so unresponsive, sickly, hardly the same person? "I shouldn't waste time thinking about it. I have to go and be a Shinra cadet." The thought made her snicker. Shinra-hating Tifa becoming a recruit was more than laughable.

Quickly grabbing the secondary uniform underneath the first blue one she stepped into the small closet given to all rooms and changed. The feeling of trepidation lasted, feeling that at any moment, she could have gotten caught and be sent home. It consisted of pants a sort of vest, boots and shoulder guards. Apparently the first one was more for show than anything else, this one definitely proved easier to move around in and fight in.

"A little bit loose," she stated, looking at all the hanging fabric near the thighs and on the top part of the uniform. "At least it hides everything better." Optimism had been one of her charms, back when they worked on raiding Mako reactors all the way until the bitter end. She and Yuffie got along better than the majority of them thought.

Looking at a map given to her with her schedule, she made her way out of the room with her slumbering bunkmates and followed it to where it said the mess hall was. Her stomach growled mercilessly. She didn't even remember the last time she ate in this time, truth be told. She guessed she made time to eat sometime yesterday, but she couldn't be sure of the time. Tifa groaned, thinking right about now, she could probably eat one of the meals Cid used to cook – those terrible burnt meals with crunchy rice and half burned noodles he used to cook when Shera wasn't around.

"_Shut up! I can cook just as well as that damn Shera!"_ he would say. He couldn't, and he would never admit it, choosing instead to eat the blasted thing instead of letting one of the more capable members of their group make a meal.

The mess hall was large, but that proved necessary as there were a huge number of cadets, and had random tables and chairs scattered about. Shinra did care about appearances though, so a few fancy potted plants sat around the general vicinity and all the chairs and tables seemed expensive and matched one another, some kind of rare metal. It seemed like, by looking at the hall, that the food would prove to be even average.

After this, Tifa doubted her own judgement and analytical skills.

When she looked at the breakfast choices provided in the mess hall, she only thanked herself for having no real appetite.

"They offer this?" she said blankly, sharing the same expression as the other cadets who stood in line and caught a glimpse of what was offered – a bubbly mass of something pink and gooey which almost seemed alive, a jello the colour of Emerald Weapon, grains which resembled rice, but a colour resembling the dirty ground of lower Junon. When it reached her turn, the mess hall lady, her hair up in a bun with a hair net over it, looked anything but interested to be doing what she did. She dropped a huge heap of all three on Tifa's plate and ushered her along, which she did so staring at the food with barely concealed curiosity, wondering what the ingredients of each _thing _contained.

Sitting down at one of the empty tables she poked around her food with a fork causing it to slosh around her plate in an increasingly unappealing manner. "Damn you, Shinra," Tifa whispered. Preparing to take a bite, she then paused and decided against it, poking at the food once more. The chatter in the mess hall ceased, she wondered why. When she looked around, she then realized, they all came here to catch a glimpse of one of the famous First-Class SOLDIERs. They had to come around to eat, though Tifa had an inkling of a feeling they often ate out, for obvious reasons. She wouldn't be able to take it if she had Cid's meals every day. Her stomach often did uncomfortable summersaults when she tasted his food and then it all came out the wrong end and led to her hurling without control into an inn toilet.

But then, their prayers were heard it seemed.

* * *

"Sephiroth, Angeal, tell me again why we must eat in the mess hall?" Genesis stated, utterly annoyed, even choosing to hide his beloved LOVELESS book beneath the folds of his red leather coat to not be read. "We are First-Class SOLDIERs, we have the money to eat out. I do not, in any way, wish to subject my body to this cruelty when I experienced it once upon a time already." He walked briskly ahead of the other two, throwing what they deemed as a 'Genesis Temper Tantrum'. "For Gaia's sake, it's a crime that the workers there can't even incorporate Banora Whites to create a simple, good dessert. Instead they have that Mako-green jello, which tastes like, pardon my language – _shit." _Genesis looked peeved and felt as if he were a cast iron pot kept on the stove for a little too long. The jobs that were sent out for heroes like him were little more than disappointing. How he would love to spend the time now reading his LOVELESS book, without a care in the world on the balcony in his apartment, sipping Banora Grape wine as he de-codified every passage, like an archaeologist going on an excavation, discovering new meanings, new pieces to fit his existing jigsaw.

Unfortunately, he had an obligation to go to the mess hall instead.

"Calm down, Genesis. We do the same thing each recruitment period, you know how Lazard is," Angeal supplied helpfully, hoping to get rid of Genesis' apparent frustration which escalate quickly once it began to climb up the mountain. "He wants us to eat with the new recruits just once so they'll be motivated to try hard. It's only honourable we do it, we don't have much else to do. Imagine how they must feel, having to eat that food every day – if we can help them but a little by sticking with them through it, maybe they won't find it to be as bad."

"The only reason you can deal with it, 'Geal," Genesis began slowly, "is because last time, you met your dear _puppy_ who is in all regards, a cadet you find once in a blue moon amongst all the worms. I'll tell you now," he said, facing Angeal, eyes narrowed, "we probably won't see another cadet like that for quite some time. No need to bet it all on this one meeting. And why," he started his tirade again after he just calmed down, "do we have to go to the _mess hall?_ You do know I caught food poisoning there a few times at the least – the only one of us with a strong enough stomach to handle it is Sephiroth and you know it, 'Geal. Stop spouting out speeches of dreams and honour when our own digestive health is at stake!" He paused, "Not to mention it is a sure waste of time."

So that had been the issue, they thought dryly. The man probably read LOVELESS all night, discovered another new way of reading it and wished to continue now, but the obstacle included dealing with all the eyes which would indefinitely be on him if he entered the mess hall. The food just made him more irate.

Without even waiting for a response, he stormed off toward the dreaded mess hall to hopefully eat as little as possible before he filled himself up on his own time. Though he enjoyed being independent and not living back in Banora, to have to eat in a disgusting place which gave him a queasy stomach, which led to the occurrence of him acting in a completely undignified manner, remained out of the question. Genesis swore he could probably cook a better meal on his own and make it look ten times more presentable within an hour.

He remembered the amount of times he wrote, with his own two hands, complaints about the food served there and handed it in to a number of departments hoping to Minerva and praying on LOVELESS that they would change it soon – they didn't need any of those rare, talented cadets dying from poisoned food. However, the complaints never reached any particular head, as heads only listened to Genesis on military deals, after all. And the small factor in which Shinra didn't have a Customer Service Department at _all_. When asked, everyone would turn heads, point the asker to numerous locations, enough to start a treasure hunt or quest. In reality of course, people like him who went on those journeys far and wide across a figurative sea, and he, the pirate captain, expecting to find some kind of treasure, found nothing. The Customer Service Department which handled complaints seemed to be nonexistent, either that or located behind the vending machine on the first floor next to the receptionist.

To think, he wasted all that time when he could have been reading LOVELESS!

"He's just aggravated because of LOVELESS," Sephiroth explained, arms crossed, walking in a leisurely manner toward the elevator which Genesis tapped his foot in front of impatiently. "He always gets like this when he discovers new things about it and duty interrupts him." Indeed he did – making it a constant pattern to blow up at them over an unrelated manner when things were such. The man had a legendary short fuse. "But I also believe he has given up on finding any worthy cadets which has made that frustration of his escalate."

Genesis, he and Angeal had always been good friends. Sephiroth, others told him, had the emotional depth of a test tube, not much at all – the pun on all the Mako injections and experiments completed on him by Hojo was an intended one. But his two friends, he always managed to read at least somewhat accurately, Genesis more so since he wore his heart on his sleeve, like a passionate flame unwilling to burnt out – he turned his emotions into strength where others would have considered it weakness.

"You believe he wants to find someone to mentor?" Angeal questioned. "With his criteria, it's all but impossible. The man is far too picky."

Angeal on the other hand hid his emotions much more cleverly and often remained cool-headed, just like Sephiroth himself, though with much more care toward his peers and cadets in the program. He always wanted to be the ideal upperclassman that people would look up to – Sephiroth believed he accomplished that already and didn't realize it. Plenty looked up to him, many more wished they were Zackary Fair, his student.

"Better than mentoring someone who will never make it," Sephiroth answered him. "I don't believe he's looking for anyone, but is more frustrated by the lack of there being any choice. If he does find someone, I have no doubt he'll go about it and get that individual as his student. Genesis is like that, in denial that he will ever pick anyone to be his student, but if he finds someone worthy," both of them shared a look.

"He'll do anything to get them as a student," they both agreed.

They reached the elevator right when the doors opened and they entered behind Genesis who tapped the floor number a little too harshly, jamming it directly in. It would now probably stop at this floor first no matter what the next person clicked.

"Genesis, you do know that you've inconvenienced a vast amount of Shinra employees, correct?" Angeal said slowly watching the glowing button which remained happily jammed inside its slot, not coming out anytime soon.

"Shinra, or more specifically, Lazard, inconvenienced _me_ by assigning this utterly useless job," Genesis retorted, leaning against the elevator wall. "And Shinra has the money to fix it anyway – no doubt the President's spawn burns it in his office fireplace all by himself. I mean, what other jobs does he get? I would be doing him a favour. The poor sap is probably bored."

Angeal sighed, Sephiroth remained tight-lipped and stoic as ever. Both wondered when their friend would decide to make way for the slightly less _bratty _Genesis.

* * *

_Word Count: 5 165_


	3. Lost

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_Here's the next chapter, all. This has some exchanges of words between our three First-Class SOLDIERs and Tifa. I hope I accurately depicted her feeling in this, because even if she's a woman on a mission, seeing Sephiroth is likely to spring up some fear in her, regardless of if she knows he hasn't lost his mind yet. I also wrote Rayleigh into this chapter and she will play a role in the story to come as well. In any case, I hope you all enjoy it and you don't hesitate to tell me what you think. I'm always looking for your opinions so I can know what I did well and what needs work. Thank you to everybody who favourited, reviewed, and followed. Your support means a lot to me._

* * *

**Chapter III ~ Lost ~**

They walked into the mess hall and as expected, many pairs of eyes settled on them and a chatter-haven turned into a deathly silence most commonly found in a graveyard or Hojo's labs. Sephiroth turned his gaze one way and he saw an utterly repulsive sight – food falling out of the mouth of a shocked cadet, who couldn't believe he met his gaze. It hit the table with a distinct splatter, wherein the pink mush fell apart and became even more unrecognizable. It looked more like guts and human remains Sephiroth saw on the battlefield, truth be told. Angeal was the first to walk up to the lady working, and nonchalantly, not at all phased by seeing three of the most famous SOLDIERs in her mess hall, she gave him the same heaps of indistinguishable _food _as she gave the others, ushering him along. He looked at it, wondering what the pink glob was, because out of all of the food, that one seemed the most dangerous – it seemed to be moving.

The other two also shared the same look of disgust, mostly aimed toward the poor pink blob who must have been insulted by now. They sat at the nearest table, which upon looking, was occupied by one cadet, short dark hair, a decidedly pretty face and scrawny as could be allowed by a male, who continued to poke and prod at his food as if he would rather not touch it, even provided with a ten foot pole. If they didn't know better, they would think he actually was a girl.

The three sat down around him and wordlessly began to mimic his actions, also not wanting to be the first to taste it. Angeal started though, feeling the silence to be awkward. "Hello cadet. I'm Angeal Hewley, First-Class SOLDIER, it's a pleasure to meet you." With a pleasant smile he outstretched a hand for him to shake.

The cadet stiffened upon seeing him and gave him a small smile, shaking the hand which seemed to be outstretched. "Cadet Teef Lockhart – it's nice to meet you, First-Class Hewley." He paused and looked at the other two, continuing again, "And you must be General Sephiroth and First-Class Rhapsodos. It's nice to meet you two, sirs. I apologize for my lack of attention initially; the food is… pretty unique and eye-catching."

"That's an understatement if I ever heard one," Sephiroth deadpanned looking at the food with what only could be barely contained distaste, a look that many people wouldn't want the man to grace them with.

Genesis nodded and continued, "To be honest, I have gotten food poisoning for this pathetic excuse for nourishment back in my cadet days. I would suggest avoiding it when you can." He gave him a wry smile. "It's not enjoyable attending class when you feel like your stomach is at a rodeo show at the same time."

The cadet still reacted from Sephiroth's voice, trembling slightly, not at all related to the deep baritone of his vocal quality, but more so due to some underlying reason. Sephiroth saw this and said quietly, ""Do I… frighten you?" The cadet stiffened more, back erect, when he heard this. "If so, I apologize: I do not try to be as intimidating as I seem. Genesis and Angeal often tell me I should act less like a robot." His lips twitched. "I am still working on it." Genesis smirked and Angeal let out a small chuckle of amusement.

"I'm not afraid," Teef said, smiling weakly. They all heard the lie. Somehow, Sephiroth felt like rectifying the issue.

All the while Genesis looked at the cadet's face and noticed just how feminine it seemed – the large eyes, the soft skin and the delicate features. He seemed more than just effeminate. He narrowed his eyes and wondered himself why he thought to be so courteous toward him when he was anything but in a good mood. He seemed to be pretty, no doubt and had a genuine smile that seemed as perfect as the even spreading of cream cheese over a bagel, not the slightest hint of dishonesty or a smile solely for the sake of getting in their good graces as he had seen so many times while in the position of First-Class. An anomaly he was, the piece of data that didn't seem to fit with the rest of numbers in a sequence, sitting in with them, yet not quite fitting in every aspect.

He wondered why, why indeed. Upon the cadet's questioning look, he said dryly, "You do know you seem like a girl, right?"

Angeal and Sephiroth sighed yet again, wondering what their friend seemed to be thinking. After all it could only be an insult and turn into some kind of conflict between the two.

* * *

When the three first arrived, Tifa didn't know how to react. They all looked so regal now, so untainted – Sephiroth looking somewhat content even, like a great cat bathing in the sunlight, not even having a hint of insanity present, Angeal smiling after giving her a greeting, the ideal, kind upperclassman, and Genesis warning her about the food, looking like he spent an awful lot of time grooming himself and giving off the air that he was in fact, quite proud of his good looks. She only imagined how he felt when those looks deteriorated, no longer resembling what he saw in the mirror daily.

She wondered how long it would be now before everything so _happy_ would begin to turn for the worse, going down a constant trek downhill.

Tifa instinctively twitched when she came face to face with Sephiroth, the mad man's event of burning down her home, killing her father and slashing her with Masamune still fresh in her mind. She tried to force herself not to. The hopeless memories in which Cloud dangled from his sword, the glinting mental ripped through him as thoroughly as a knife through a tomato, his arms limp, still horrified her.

She remembered screaming, shrieking, while not quite certain what to do with herself that she hated SOLDIER, Shinra, everything – and then, she thought bitterly, look at where she'd ended up. But, looking at the man in front of her, he seemed so very human, not a killing machine, not someone so cruel and heartless. Sephiroth was different, but she hoped her judgement wasn't wrong.

"Do I… frighten you?" he asked curiously, though not without concern. "If so, I apologize. I do not try to be as intimidating as I seem. Genesis and Angeal often tell me I should act less like a robot." His lips twitched. "I am still working on it."

His two friends looked more than amused.

He was human, or else he wouldn't be able to tease and joke the way he did. It almost seemed surreal, Sephiroth with friends, not just calling for Jenova to love and embrace him. She forced herself to smile back a little, ignoring the prickling sensation where her scar had once been on her older body. Tifa forced herself not to remember how it hurt, the excruciating pain when metal sliced through layers upon layers of flesh, when she'd been left for dead. The trauma still lasted, even now, even when the wound had long healed.

Tifa disliked him for all he did, but then, the man in front of her didn't even seem like the same person. Those eyes, that hair, that malicious sneer he would give them before he burst forward into a fight, attempting wholeheartedly to tear Cloud limb from limb, sent shudders travelling down her spine in a rhythmic fashion, like a horse galloping. This man seemed intimidating, but never made her want to let loose a bloodcurdling scream and hold her head in her hands, just crying, sobbing and pleading for anyone to take her away, be her knight in shining armour. That dream died soon – she had to be her own knight. No one else would. It was foolish to hope when it was her life – she should risk everything. And she did. All of it brutally taken from her – all her risks, her pride, her joy, her friends: nothing remained.

Tifa wondered if it was luck which caused them to sit down at her table, so she could actually talk to them.

She knew what happened to all three of them, and each knew and kept tragedy as good of a friend as equally as one another, shook hands with it, embraced it, and fell into love with it. Just thinking about it saddened Tifa – Genesis would disclose the truth to Sephiroth due to his own degeneration, Sephiroth would fall deep into the depths of insanity from the shock of discovering his own origins, and Angeal, who she was the least familiar with, would die by Zack's hand – yet in his death, he would regain the honour he lost in life. She could only imagine the pain that Zack must have felt going through such a battle which grasped hold of him straight to the heart, an iron grip squeezing it causing it to bleed and him to feel like dying.

Tifa felt some fondness for Zack as well, when he came all those years ago to Nibelheim, that smile on his face, so hard to dislike even when she told him she hated him. Zack, she grew to like as many people had, a natural people person, kind with a force around him which could pull people close like a whirlpool did incoming ships. Even though she knew him for a short time, she knew what Cloud liked about him, why Cloud gravitated toward him. Zack seemed to be everything he wanted to be – Cloud had been less introverted back then, but still shy; Zack had been outgoing and friendly, a country boy like him as well. It seemed only natural that the two would get to know each other and become close friends, no more than even that, inseparable almost as if one couldn't exist without the other, two sides of the same coin. When Zack died, Cloud, she knew, had his soul ripped apart – he died too, in some ways, ceased to be Cloud for a little while; the real Cloud floated aimlessly around a sea of souls, asleep.

When Genesis said, "You do know you seem like a girl, right?"

Tifa flushed for all the wrong reasons. Her heart thumped fast at the prospect that it would only take them this much time to find out about her gender and send her home. If that happened, she would never be able to try to help, to try to save Cloud and Zack, to save even Sephiroth.

"W-what do you mean? I'm a guy!" Tifa retorted, hoping that she sounded offended, as if the very idea was preposterous. Her heart thumped though faster and faster, as if it was in the process of running a marathon.

Genesis smirked, resting his chin upon his hands. "You're blushing – have you realized you like me? I hate to tell you, as well as the many others I have, that I don't date men." At her flabbergasted look, he chuckled, throwing his head back, laughing with genuine glee. "_Even if the morrow is barren of promises,__  
__nothing shall forestall my return_," he quoted with a practiced, smooth tone, looking every bit the rich aristocrat – a perfect posture, holding his cutlery with grace. The only thing which ruined the picture seemed to be the heaps of food on the plate. Looking around he noticed all the eyes on them. "Look, Angeal, Sephiroth – I'm always the centre of attention whether I try or not, it seems: as expected of a hero!"

"Look, they're talking to that cadet like normal!" someone whispered to his friend. It was close enough that they could make it out.

"And he seems to be reacting normally! I would have pissed my pants if I were in that situation!" his friend exclaimed. Sephiroth thanked his own judgement in that he didn't choose their table to sit at.

Even if he may have thought she had a crush on him, the only feeling welling up inside her was relief that her cover hadn't been blown so soon. Only disaster would have approached if he found out and if he decided to report her. But what he said, it sounded so familiar to her…

"I apologize for Genesis' behavior, Cadet Lockhart – his vanity knows no bounds," Sephiroth said dryly. "He's irritated because he didn't have the time to read his beloved LOVELESS due to this task." He looked at the man who paid little to no attention to him. Angeal nodded in agreement, but Tifa lost herself in thoughts. Where had she heard that before?

"_Even if the morrow is barren of promises,__nothing shall forestall my return_," Tifa repeated slowly, now remembering the rest, "_To become the dew that quenches the land, to spare the sands, the seas, the skies - I offer thee this silent sacrifice."_ It had been the poem that Minerva graced her after sending her through time. That warm feeling sprouted within her once more, a young plant, vibrant and healthy. Remembering that made her remember Aeris, Minerva, Cloud, Yuffie, Barret, Cid, Nanaki, Reeve, Vincent and all the sacrifices they made so that the world could survive and flourish.

Angeal looked at her in shock, and Sephiroth's eyes widened slightly. "So, someone besides Genesis likes LOVELESS?" Angeal mused. "I never would have thought."

"Truly, it does seem like Genesis is the only fan of that," Sephiroth added. "No one else bothered to memorize an act like him."

Genesis scoffed. "They have an entire street dedicated to LOVELESS, if you recall." Still, he looked fascinated. The pure sincerity in which LOVELESS was spoken from Tifa's lips made him smile a little bit – interesting, he thought. The tone of his voice also embodied perfection within reciting the poem. The cadet didn't seem to be a member of his fan-club either. To meet another person interested in the poem he spent years reading, into the early hours of the morning when dawn would come, caused him to ask a question, to make small talk, both of which he never did for mere pathetic cadets. Perhaps he found one who wasn't such a worm after all. "So, you like LOVELESS?"

"LOVELESS?" Tifa questioned, looking at the three of them. "Is that what it's called?"

"You memorized a poem without knowing the name of it?" Sephiroth questioned leaning forward ever-so-slightly, a little more than curious about the cadet in front of him. It might have been because of his obvious fear of him earlier, and as time went by, he seemed to be relaxing, forgetting the fact that he could smell her reluctance to sit by him, talk to him. Sephiroth wanted to see _why _to wonder what it was that made him so afraid. Strangely, it seemed different than the usual fear that cadets often showed to him. This fear, he showed, burrowed deep inside to the core, an honest fear so large it could take hold of a man and control his actions, control him, showing visible involuntary actions that he couldn't control. What made the cadet fear him so greatly?

"A… friend recited it to me before she died," Tifa said in partial truth. It was the most she could revealed without them thinking she contracted a bout of _bullshit – _if she just so happened to tell them she was from the past, she was actually a girl, and she now focused on the quest in front of her, to save them all from a brutal, bitter end where most of them would die painful, painful deaths.

"Your friend had good taste," Genesis commented a bit insensitively. He retrieved his LOVELESS novel from within the folds of his leather coat. Tifa noticed how intricate the design was, and how well cared for it was, despite the man in front of her obviously reading it often. He flipped the pages until near the end and clucked his tongue. "What you quoted came from Act V, the final act in LOVELESS, its bittersweet end in which the hero sacrifices his life to protect his lover – then, he promises that he will meet her again in another life. However, it may also be read from the viewpoint of the prisoner, who while falling in love with a woman from the enemy faction, still believes his promise made to his friends is important and thus, his promise to them is to return…" He continued on and Tifa found herself interested, maybe by the passion in which he spoke about this poem, so beyond interested, infatuated and entranced, caught by the inescapable net of words that the poem constructed.

"Hold it, Genesis, you may be giving the poor cadet in too much information – when you get started on LOVELESS, you never stop," Angeal said, chuckling.

Genesis snapped his book shut and was about to open his mouth before Sephiroth shot him a warning glance, telling him not to let his temper get the better of him. So, reluctantly, he reined it in before settling for a scowl. "Am I feeding you too much information?" he asked reluctantly. He didn't want to admit that it had been far too long since he chatted to someone about his beloved LOVELESS. He remembered when he once tried with Angeal's puppy, only to have him fall asleep when he quoted the sacred words. He had no taste in literature, at all. At least Sephiroth and Angeal never showed him outward disrespect, and he had gotten the former to memorize most of the important acts, due to the very amount in which he quoted them.

"It's alright," Tifa said smiling. "I like hearing about it – continue if you want, I'll listen." She would listen because it reminded her of her friends, in a strangely warm manner that fit and did not fit the context behind their sacrifice and because Genesis found it important. If she were to get closer to him, maybe she would have a chance at stopping him before he instigated the chain of events leading to the destruction of Gaia.

And so he did, telling the cadet of some of the many of readings he divulged from his in depth analysis of the words of LOVELESS, speaking with passion he thought he never had within him to speak about his own hobby to someone else. Though, LOVELESS grew to be his entire life, not just a hobby. The cadet, he found listened intently, those wine-coloured eyes intently fixed upon him, somewhat narrowed, and his eyebrows furrowed. He found it pleasant almost, to talk to this cadet about something which meant so much to him. He wondered if the cadet belonged to his fanclub and studied LOVELESS to get closer to him and then, when looking at that genuinely curious look, eager to learn more, he threw that thought aside.

"It seems like Genesis has met his match. A curious cadet who likes LOVELESS," Sephiroth said with a barely concealed smile upon his lips. "It is nice for him. He'll soon want to see how the boy can fight. I can tell he is interested." And indeed he could tell, that almost analytical look upon his features set there, directed toward the cadet in between quotes and explanations, looking for some hidden meaning, looking for what could be behind that face - like looking for treasure, whether the inside of the chest would contain gems and rubies he would keep for his own, or phony relics he would be better off pawning. If all the criteria sat well with him, no doubt Genesis would choose to mentor this cadet. He found one worth watching. That condition of a cadet liking and seeming interested in LOVELESS for unselfish reasons seemed the hardest to find.

Angeal nodded, and smiled. He decided to be the first to take a legitimate bite of the food, the pink blob first, and wasn't disappointed. It was chewy, disgusting, and tasted like a mixture of fish bones and arugula, with the nice added zest of ranch dressing and artificial bubble gum flavouring. "Disgusting," he hissed and felt nearly like keeling over on the spot, but that would be unbefitting of a First-Class SOLDIER.

The others blinked and looked at him, taking bites as well. Sephiroth showed nothing, Tifa turned green and covered her mouth and Genesis promptly reached for his glass of water and downed it all in one go.

"_Hey Zack, how do you eat this stuff" Cloud asked, looking at the mountain of food in front of him with distaste, prodding at it with a fork, watching it restore itself from a dent. Miraculous healing properties indeed – maybe Hojo should have researched it, he thought dryly. The man was more than just creepy._

_Zack did the same, poking at it curiously, watching as the pit he created bubbled until it filled itself in. "What the hell?" he exclaimed. He threw his fork down on the plate and crossed his arms, pouting, "To be honest, I usually eat out."_

_Cloud glared. "So, you cheat? You eat out when the rest of us eat here."_

"_It's not cheating, it's called 'preserving my health'!" Zack argued back. "I remember it from back when I was a cadet. It really wasn't pleasant. I tried to avoid it, but sometimes… y'know, I had to save my money! Didn't get much and had to send some home," he explained. "So sometimes I threw up. I swear they put something in the food," he whispered conspiratorially._

"_It can't be that bad, right?" Cloud said uncertainly – Zack tried to nod, though it came out as more of a grimace. "Alright, on three. We've got to do this. One," he started._

"_Two," Zack said._

"_Three," the both said together, and then took a fork full of the food and shoved it in their mouths._

_They promptly blacked out._

The force of it all was too much, the food, the memory she saw playing in her head, it was played on a cheap and fuzzy television screen, blacking out, turning on, and blacking out yet again. Her skull throbbed and her body swayed from side to side.

"Teef, are you alright?" Angeal said, concerned, quickly making his way toward her side, trying to hold her up.

Genesis, not one to show concern, pushed her water closer to her, gazing from her to the glass, telling her to take a sip of it. Unfortunately, she was too woozy to comprehend, let alone do as told.

"I never knew the food could cause disastrous results like these," Sephiroth mused, looking curiously at Tifa.

The end came swiftly like Shinra did to Mako. She blacked out, just like Cloud and Zack did in her dream.

* * *

_"Sit down,"__ Tifa said to the blonde man who looked uncomfortable to be standing in the same room as her. He looked at her with barely expressive eyes before he took a seat at the offered barstool. She leant on the table, asking almost a little too eagerly, "__How about something to drink?"_

"_**That hurt, he… didn't look at me, did he?"**_

_He pondered her question for a moment, debating over whether to say no. If he did, she had no doubt she'd persuade him, telling him how great everyone said her drinks were, all the heavy flattery they would bestow upon her. She didn't want to tell him that it nearly meant nothing without him telling her. _

"_**Did he even care about me?"**_

"Of course he did, as a friend, right?"

"_Give me something hard," he said finally, turning away from her, his thoughts elsewhere._

"_**He was thinking about Aeris then."**_

"_**Never me…"**_

"Never me…"

"_Just a minute. I'll make one for you." She settled behind the bar and prepared to make the best drink she ever made. Though, it might have gone unnoticed again, her efforts to connect with him, to try to get back that old Cloud she made that promise with so long ago. "You know, I'm relieved you made it back safely," she added, almost nonchalantly._

"_**Why do I… try so hard?"**_

"_What's with you all of a sudden? That wasn't even a tough job," he scoffed._

_I guess not. You were in SOLDIER," Tifa said, though mostly to herself. The word tasted like poison upon her tongue, slowly flowing into her system, slowly burning through everything in its path. It wasn't true, she wanted to say, but couldn't, instead choosing to keep her back to him, wanting to keep the emotions deep within the catacombs of her heart. "Make sure you get your pay from Barret."_

"_Don't worry. Once I get that money, I'm outta here."_

"_**I knew that, I just wanted to pretend."**_

"What about when I tried to help him…?"

_His hands shook and sweat blanketed his forehead. He took in deep laboured breaths as he tossed and turned in his sleep. The sheets crinkled and fell off his bed as he instinctively curled up into the fetal position, hugging his hands to his head, close to his knees._

_Tifa sat up, red alert on the next bed, hearing him moan, terrified, horrified, and she rushed to his side, sitting on his bed, then stroked his head, whispering sweet nothings into his ear to comfort him, cooing to him that everything was okay._

"_**When I was terrified about what was happening… this was the beginning, wasn't it?"**_

_He shot up at her touch, clutching his head. His eyes looked empty, so shocked, glazed over, not of this world at all and the sweat continued to form in droplets on his skin. He rubbed his arms and then brought one hand closer, and clenched the fists so hard it bit into his skin, drawing blood which seemed to relax him._

"_**Maybe, I knew what he was dreaming about back then…"**_

_Tifa, startled, pulled his one hand away from the other. "What are you doing Cloud? Are you, okay?" It had been a dumb question, but she was worried._

"_I'm fine… but…"_

_They both knew his unspoken words, why he clenched his fist and looked so much as if he wanted to disappear off the face of the planet._

"_**Aeris…"**_

Tifa groaned and opened her eyes slowly; her head still pounding like someone thought her head a gong and decided to strike it. Even though usually fresh when she'd wake up, she now felt emotionally drained. All those memories about Cloud – her heart still felt like it'd been shot so many times. She knew it bled in agony, no matter the gauze she put over the wounds to cover them up and push them aside, to try to focus on the battle at hand. She vowed to put her feelings aside to help him, to help Cloud never break down like that again. It was hard though. She loved him and felt sometimes, Cloud never saw her, not even as a friend, not until his last moments.

Cloud was blinded by Aeris. And Tifa loved her, no doubt about that. But to have to try so hard for someone and have that all thrown back, shredded and ripped, like a careless child who opened Christmas presents, hurt.

She sighed and heard a voice beside her. "Oh, you're awake." Tifa looked and saw a woman sitting on a stool, short brown hair and spectacles, a member of Shinra's Research Division. A small name tag said 'Rayleigh', pinned up to her pristine white lab-coat. "You kept muttering to yourself in your sleep, about Clouds it seemed." All the resentment swelled to the surface immediately, acquiring unmatched buoyancy. It was because of them that Angeal and Genesis thought they were monsters. It was because of them that Sephiroth went insane – their reckless behavior with Jenova, treating everyone as if they had no heart, no soul, couldn't feel pain that burrowed beneath their skin, flesh and bone, down to the feelings which constructed them bit by bit. Tifa bit the side of her lip, drawing blood. Tasting the metallic substance eased her emotions just a bit, from a typhoon to a small geyser.

"The General, Rhapsodos and Hewley brought you here to the private infirmary, usually for embarrassing injuries. You collapsed during a meal in the mess hall, apparently." The woman scoffed, apparently not believing a word they said. "Must have thought you contracted a bout of indigestion, bringing you here like this." She prodded Tifa's arm with a pen she used to write on the papers firmly held in place by her cork clipboard and smirked smugly. Tifa noticed the other empty beds, only four or so in the small room. No one wanted to come and declare that they'd gotten injured in some horribly humiliating fashion, it seemed. "Of course, a researcher of my caliber would find out the _real_ issue. You were suffering from Mako poisoning, though I don't see how," she mused then placed a cool hand over Tifa's forehead, soothing her painful head, hot like coals above a fire. "It must've caused your head to hurt quite a bit."

Tifa nodded, not at all eager to be in the woman's presence. It not only seemed as if she were patronizing and condescending, but the very fact she was in the same department as Hojo made her blood boil. But, Mako poisoning she said – Tifa knew why, though how it happened seemed to escape her. She came into contact with the Lifestream and Minerva used it to send her back in time. Coming into contact with it could be deadly – Cloud was a prime example – but why her? She wondered why the effects remained if she was sent through time. "Yeah, my head hurt a bit," Tifa said reluctantly, bringing herself into a sitting position. "It still hurts."

"Well deal with it," Rayleigh (she assumed that nametag was hers) said, matter-of-fact. Tifa glared at her. "We haven't fixed the problem because we don't know what it is. Neither do you, do you?" The woman looked at her, glasses falling slightly down the bridge of her nose – she looked every bit a librarian attempting to keep the noise low with that hawkish glance.

"Of course not," Tifa agreed, giving her an innocent look. Tifa knew somewhat what happened to her, but not the reasons why. She would never trust telling a Shinra researcher – she would die before telling Rayleigh.

Rayleigh _tsked _and gave her a look like a parent scolding her child. "You know at least a bit of what's going on. Come into contact with Mako lately? You sure as hell didn't get it from Shinra." The woman seemed to be speaking to herself now, muttering about possibilities and unknown variables, before she snapped back into focus. She cleared her throat. "But whatever happened, there's a bigger issue at hand." She gave Tifa a pointed look.

Tifa looked back, eyebrows furrowed. "What?" she just about snapped.

"I would like to know," she started slowly, "what a _girl _is doing in the Shinra military."

Tifa's heart stopped.

* * *

_Word Count: 5 208_


	4. Not Alone

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_I tried to resist, I really did. But, tomorrow'll be a week - I just finished this up a bit early. I tried to make the characters I constructed as likeable as possible - this includes her roommates from earlier and the instructor in this chapter. I don't want them to be two dimensional, annoying side characters at all. I want to make them come to life. I rather like how I constructed Instructor Seagram, even though his consistent swearing. And, honestly if you all have any issues with them, feel free to tell me, along with any other issues in my piece. I'm here to get better as a writer and have you all enjoy this._

_Now, some of the reviews were anonymous, and since I can't reply by PM, I'll reply on this chapter, at the bottom since I don't want to make the top A/N long._

* * *

**Chapter IV ~ Not Alone~**

"I would like to know," Rayleigh started slowly, "what a _girl _is doing in the Shinra military."

The words sent her heart racing, her mind on red alert, wondering what happened for her to be caught so soon, why the woman even knew. All the possibilities flashed through her mind about what would happen to her if her sentence was to be sent home – would the world end up in the same state as before, except without the benefit of a second chance? Masamune would tear down everything, destroy everything, annihilate everything, serving his beloved master as loyally and faithfully, adding corpses and corpses to an already high body count.

Tifa couldn't let that happen. Minerva and Aeris sacrificed themselves to give her this second chance, to give her the opportunity to kill the weed before it grew into a horrendous parasite, sucking on the very life of the planet, wounding it horribly. Those screams she heard in Cosmo Canyon, when Bugenhagen let them hear the planet wailing like a struck animal caught by a hunter, begging anyone to just put it out of its misery, still haunted her, a phantom amidst a corporeal world, living yet dead, floating aimlessly through a world where no one could actually hear it but Aeris. Gaia stood alone, crying in the dark, abandoned by humankind who decided to use its energy to make their lives better.

When she joined AVALANCHE at first, it had been about saving the planet so that all future generations could live in peace, so that Shinra wouldn't suck the world dry and leave nothing for those who were younger, those like Marlene.

It changed when she heard those screams, her motives, the way she took action, everything. Gaia needed their help – Gaia lived and face daily torture of all kinds, ones which bit into its flesh, drilling holes into it and taking its blood, using it, treating it no better than some sacrificial lamb when they owed it everything. And she wouldn't let Jenova kill Gaia either – it didn't belong, no one knew even what it was. It killed of Aeris' kind, destroyed Sephiroth's sanity, fought them so many times that her heart grew weary, but she would continue to fight it all to save Gaia, to save everyone on the planet too. Tifa wanted to extend a hand to Gaia, tell the planet it wasn't alone, that they would fight a thousand demons, Jenova being first on the list, if they could ease its pain like hot chocolate did on a wintry day, sitting on a deserted park bench, the bitter loneliness creeping inside like a burglar in the night, catching one unaware. They would ward off those demons, that burglar, away from Gaia.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tifa retorted stubbornly. She refused to give up without a fight. The world's fate hung on her shoulders, weighing her down, but she refused to sit down and live life peacefully until everything repeated itself and her life was shattered - if her very own father died before her eyes and she grew to once again resent Sephiroth blindly. To push that hate away, she found difficult, but she did it before, putting it in a place where she would deal with it later: he needed her help, which kept her going. He needed a hand extended to him as much as anyone, to help him stand up and think for his own, to be the hero everyone knew him to be, saving people and protecting people with Masamune at his side, not murdering them in various fashions. "I'm Cadet Teef Lockhart. It's insulting to be called a girl."

"A man, huh?" Rayleigh repeated, thoroughly amused. "I treat patients often, Lockhart, more than you know. In order to treat Mako poisoning, I had to flush some of it from your system – there was quite a bit, after all and it's still there, even now. I can't get rid of it all because your body's grown reliant on it. Think of it like sugar. The coffee you put it in tastes different and its increasingly difficult to take it out. The coffee _fuses_ with it," she explained, tapping her fingers on her arm rest. "It was a full medical procedure though, since I had to diagnose you with Mako poisoning so I could do something about it." Tifa stilled, knowing what was coming, a fact she could not refute no matter how she wanted. Rayleigh smirked. "As you can imagine, I had to unbutton your shirt a bit so I could hear your heartbeat, check your breathing, all that jazz. Imagine my shock when I found bindings. Your body did seem a bit to scrawny to be a man's. I am used to feeling up men, not women," she said thoughtlessly. "Now, I would like to ask why a woman decided to enter Shinra's military. You could have entered the Turks – yet you aspire for SOLDIER. Why?" At Tifa's silence, her stubborn expression where she bit her lip, determined not to answer she sighed. "I won't tattle on you if you provide a good enough reason. I'm not close to the other researchers in Shinra either." The very names of Hollander and Hojo made her blood boil.

That sated Tifa slightly, enough to allow her to talk. This woman in front of her, seemed to at least hold some degree of dislike for Hojo, and in her eyes, that made her at least not her enemy. "I'm here to stop something very bad from happening." Rayleigh opened her mouth to speak, but Tifa held her hand up, stopping her. "I have to be here, it's the only way. I'm the only one who can do it too. There's no one else." The last part just made her heart feel heavy and her tongue taste bitter. The truth stung like an angry bee on a summer's day. She really was all alone, no one else to help her, no one to talk to. That made her feels so very _enclosed,_ claustrophobic almost, like the pollution in Midgar made her feel, blocking her view of the stars she saw so clearly in Nibelheim.

Rayleigh sighed again, as if listening to Tifa exhausted her. "I can see you're set. You're obviously doing something more important than pursuing your dreams ," she said, surprising Tifa. "Maybe it might be against my better judgement, but I'll leave you alone." At Tifa's smile beginning to form, she held up her finger. "I'll even let you come to me for medical examinations. You're lucky Rhapsodos isn't fond of Hollander and Sephiroth is not fond of Hojo, so they took you to me, the one researcher they even mildly tolerate. All on one condition, however." The cautious look on Tifa's face formed again, her lips pulled into a tight line. "I want to research you, your Mako poisoning, everything. My sixth sense tells me there's something a little off about you, but I don't know what."

"Why do you want to research me? You gain nothing out of it…" Tifa asked warily. The very thought of sitting on an examination table, completely vulnerable, while a researcher poked and prodded at her didn't seem good to her. It reminded her too much of Hojo, what he'd almost been able to do to Aeris and Red, what he _had _done to Cloud, Zack and Sephiroth.

"Calm down," Rayleigh said, standing up and then walking to the nearby counter. Putting some clear liquid in a syringe, she said, "If you want to know, I really hate Hojo and Hollander – the two head scientists in charge here. It's because of this that Sephiroth, Angeal and Genesis trust me a bit. Those two scientists… did unspeakable things to them."

It was strange to listen to a scientist talking about hating one another, to see Rayleigh tremble with more than just fury. Tifa admitted her slightly jaded attitude toward them. After all, she hadn't met too many ones who were genuine people, who cared about others, who felt their pain as their own, a stabbing pain through their heart – the physical manifestations of guilt and remorse in most humans. They were sadistic, fed off the pain as others and inhaled it like air, took it in as nourishment like a plant would sunlight to grow. It sickened her.

"Your body is different though, and contains so much Mako that you might as well be in SOLDIER itself… but you're not experiencing any of the symptoms common to those in it," Rayleigh continued, explaining. "I can't really explain it, but it seems almost as if the Mako _likes _you even though its poisoned you. It takes years for SOLDIER to get where you are with Mako consumption – you should have died with this much in you. The only ones with this kind of reaction were those three when Hojo and Hollander…" she trailed off, staring at the syringe blankly. Tifa thought she looked sad, almost. "Anyway, I want to research you to figure out what's got Hojo and Hollander's panties in a knot about them. There's something off about them, something those two did to them… I have no access to the files, those three know nothing of significance… and I want to help them. All I have on my side is my own brain. But maybe if I research you who has the same reaction as those three, I'll know."

Her intentions were honourable it seemed. But even by researching her body, Tifa thought, she would never find out about Jenova, the extra-terrestrial creature that killed all the Ancients and recently got excavated from a rock. Hojo would tell Sephiroth that his mother's name was Jenova, as if Lucrecia never existed, as if Jenova didn't prevent her from dying even though she suffered endless torment. "My body isn't the same as theirs…" she offered. "There's a creature you need to look at the cells of – it's name is Jenova. If you find it, Hojo should know where, that's what's causing the problems with them."

"You…" Rayleigh looked shocked, her mouth open.

"Don't ask me how I know: I can't tell you that," Tifa said, frowning. "Those two… injected Jenova's cells into them when they were in their mothers' wombs. But, the one thing I don't know how to do is solve the problem. It doesn't seem like it'd have a cure." It seemed sad, to leave Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal to their fate. She wanted a chance to cure them, to stop Genesis from degrading, to stop him feeling so lost and alone like no one stood by his side, little more than a ghost walking amongst the living, feeling like no one understood him. "If you can research me and work on a cure, I wouldn't mind, though I don't know how much help I'd be."

Rayleigh nodded, giving her a small smile. "Thank you. You won't regret it." She finished preparing the syringe and muttered, "I can be of use to him now, hopefully." Tifa wondered who that _who _was – Sephiroth, Angeal or Genesis. A sense of nostalgia glazed her words like icing on a half-decorated cake. Rayleigh walked toward Tifa and said, holding the syringe, "We need this to help dilute the Mako in your blood. After this, you can head to your second class since you missed your first," she said. Then, with a calculating smile befitting of a scientist, she said, "It'll only hurt a tiny bit."

Tifa swallowed, feeling that she may have made the wrong decision. What if Rayleigh was exactly like Hojo? That smile told her quite a bit.

The needle sank into her skin.

Surprisingly, it did only hurt a little bit.

* * *

"Alright you grunts: pick out a weapon and pick out a partner. And stop looking so shit-faced at the thought you goddamn cowards!" A few of the cadets stood immediately alert at that, a look of dread to a look of pure horror as if they all just saw multiple ghosts haunting the exercise area. Their skin paled significantly at the thought of the instructor getting to them. "You amateurs spar with one another," Instructor Seagram barked. Tifa came into class late but heard him all the way at the other end of the hall, a megaphone not needed to magnify the older gentleman's voice at all. His skin looked like it'd seen a lot of war, gashes and scars that Mako didn't even properly heal and permanent frown lines etched deeply into his face like sharp grooves found on a hand-crafted wooden chest of drawers.

Everyone moved to pick up weapons which were laid out at the back of the room, swords in all shapes and sizes: training swords of course, which were duller and couldn't unfortunately sever a leg off a student. Most people gravitated towards the slender swords, akin to pick katana like ones so that they could get close to their idol, Sephiroth, whose sword well exceeded the average length for most: a shocking seven feet. She wondered what they thought in her timeline, when Sephiroth decided to go insane and kill everyone who stood in his path. Then, she knew – Shinra kept it hush, hush after all, a mere whisper among plenty of more dominant rumours. They had the ability to – something Tifa hated them for. She remembered how they destroyed the Sector 7 slums and blamed it on AVALANCHE, just wanting to control the public with all their false promises.

Looking at the bright faces filled with joy when touching their chosen weapon, she wondered of SOLDIER members were the same, thinking they were doing something good, beneficial like providing vitamins to a vitamin-deficient body, when they didn't know half of what went on behind closed doors – screams that pierced the night as cells and Mako were diffused into the bloodstream, knives cutting through flesh under the false pretense of examination.

Tifa just stood in her spot, unmoving, willing to rely on her fists as a weapon as she always had. Zangan taught her well – he said, out of all his one-hundred-twenty students worldwide – she contained the most potential.

"Oi, cadet – why aren't you picking out a weapon," Instructor Seagram point out gruffly. "Do you want your ass beaten? I guarantee that even if those three upper class SOLDIER's have taken an interest in you, you'll need to have a hell of a lot of luck to not end up like some fucking bleeding mass on the ground – one I sure as hell won't be cleaning up." He chuckled. "Going to have to send you to the private infirmary again, won't we."

Tifa pulled out her fighting gloves from her back pocket and pulled them on to her hands, strong ones that her trainer crafted himself with his own two hands, months of hard work and toil that created cuts and bruises and hard callouses that refused to fade even with constant care. The leather and all the metal which sat on top of it in various fashions designed to give her the ultimate punch, made her flattered. Zangan said he rarely gave people gloves and only crafted to find his own perfect fit to perfect his martial arts.

She gained instant fame when she entered the class due to everyone talking about the event which transpired at breakfast. Instant fame also turned into instant humiliation when it had occurred to the students that, like a dog becoming ill when eating chocolate, she'd collapsed while eating cafeteria food and near the three strongest SOLDIER's of the Shinra company no less. Instructor Seagram knew equality, but for many a student, jealousy fueled their behavior – she could hear the snicker and see the underlying malice hidden in their eyes like treasure beneath the ground of Bone Village. They alienated her. She didn't see her roommates since she woke up, and assumed they had different schedules than her – she wondered how they would react and would they treat her the same since they bonded over sharing parts of their lives, trading them like warm gifts traded during the winter season to promote love and eternal friendship, contrasting the cold air surrounding them, trying not to make them feel alone. They hoped they loved Teef Lockhart enough to stand by 'him'.

A nervous flutter in her stomach like a thousand butterflies fluttering their wings at every angle, every stretch, and every inch of her stomach, made her feel more nauseous. Tifa got a clue that the Mako poisoning had nothing to do with it. At least, due to whatever Rayleigh did, the memories and headache stopped for a while and she was all her. It hurt not to have Cloud with her sleeping in her mind, sharing his experiences, and she knew he would come back. But right now, she needed to focus like a commander leading her first army, she needed to look into a mirror and see herself for the first time since she arrived – not some strange mixture of several people. Her memories needed to be hers.

"I have no clue how to use a sword," Tifa admitted, not listening to the snickers, the laughter. "I'll pick one up and use one if I have to, but I've relied on my fists my whole life." At his disbelieving look, she wanted to tell him she'd been to hell and back just using her fists to destroy SOLDIERs of all classes (though admittedly much less skilled than the three she saw at breakfast), to destroy monsters and dragons in the Nibel Mountains, Jenova and, with help from her allies, her fists even managed to damage Sephiroth himself – she mustered all her flames of determination into it to deliver powerful blow after powerful blow before everything went downhill and all her friends lay dead on the Northern Crater floor, their blood oozing out like air through a punctured helium balloon.

"Not using a sword? Is he crazy?" She wanted to say that yes, she was crazy and would stay that way as long as she needed to.

"Pick one up and learn," Seagram grunted, gesturing behind him to the swords. "As I said you'll end up some fucking bleeding mass on the ground – one I sure as hell won't be cleaning up. You don't even have to use it right - this is just an introduction so I can figure out how shitty you guys all are."

She wondered if the man swore out of habit – he imagined he swore to about the same degree as Cid of Barret, within reason of course as those two won records for the amount of times they cursed in a sentence. Tifa picked one up off the floor reluctantly, looking for one lighter for her build and settled on a slim sword that felt light in her hands. Quite literally grabbing a partner, who yanked his arm out of her grasp, unhappy and unsatisfied with her as a partner as well as being dragged around like a rag doll, she stood across from him in stance, noticing that everyone else also did.

"Begin!" Seagram barked, and with that, she saw the glint of swords catching the light as they clashed against one another, the sounds travelling through the air like the sharp sounds of birds chirping since they were so plentiful. Tifa snapped back into focus of her own battle, a male who brushed off his clothes arrogantly and stood far too confidently, like he thought he had this battle made – like he thought he could destroy her with a single finger as easily as he would flick an unwanted particle of dust away. The thought annoyed her and she frowned.

"Don't yank me around like that again you ass," her sparring partner said. After a small pause, he looked positively evil, a villain straight from a children's fairy tale. "What'd you do to get those three to pay attention to you – sleep with 'em? I didn't know they swung that way. But there's no other way, huh? Must've gotten fucked real good the night you got here." He continued to jeer and Tifa narrowed her eyes in response, not liking it even if she knew his error in thinking she had balls. The thought of insulting those three as well, by saying they would take advantage of a student stemmed up new forms of anger in her. They were honourable members of SOLDIER. Those three, with their power so comparable to be stronger than even the strongest summons could blow this dolt in front of her away to Icicle, to fall down through the trees on the way down to the Great Glacier and have multiple bruises and bloody sores form on him. Tifa knew her attitude constituted as more than just vindictive – she didn't care. Tifa would blow him away in their place. "You work fast."

"You would actually want to insult upper class SOLDIERs that way, those who you say you admire?" she countered, crouching and holding her blade in front of her, feeling not-so-confident about the sword, but if it turned out, she could always beat him into the ground in a fist fight, and though chances suggested she'd get a bad punishment – she would enjoy breaking his nose in, not only because she found it far too pointy and irritating, like the hat on a garden gnome sitting on his face. "I hate people like you who contradict each other all the time."

"Bring it on!" And with that, he barreled toward her clumsily, swinging his sword in one movement that he thought a scrawny soldier like her had no chance of avoiding.

But she did, quickly sidestepping it and just as clumsily meeting his sword with hers. It was surprisingly heavy, even though she'd chosen one of the lighter ones. "This is why I don't fit with swords," she grumbled and met his sword again, seeing his face heat up with anger, resembling the standard SOLDIER Second-Class uniform in colour and shade.

She felt the intense strain of her arms as she attempted to keep them up and hold him back – her stature made it incredibly difficult, however, and against her will, sweat glistened on her skin, her arms and forehead. With a huff, she pushed him forward, but then he struck back and connected their swords once again in a battle which wouldn't fare well for her in any way.

Instead, she looked down, and saw his legs planted far apart – with her flexibility, she could reach them given a little bit of edge. "Alright, here goes!" she said, smirking a little. "Better watch yourself." And with his confused look, she used the last bit of strength in her arms to push the burly boy forward. He tried to push back, as expected, but she saw him propel his leg forward to regain some of his lost balance.

With that, swinging her leg around, she kicked him right near the knee as hard as she could manage and he dropped down to one knee. "It'll bruise," Tifa said, dropping her sword to the ground, not finding any use in it now. Her arms still burned from lifting and swinging. It hit the floor with a resounding clang that seemed unusual until she realized everyone watched her.

"Ugh!" the male grunted in pain as she ran forward, almost as if she had air currents making her fly, to swiftly teleport forward like a bird's wings would cut the sky as it flew, as if a dolphin would swim through the water, forcing it to part for its grace and agility – then, skidding to a stop, she wound her fist backwards and, with all the strength Tifa Lockhart became known for, in the Sector 7 Slums as the toughest barmaid around when it came to hoodlums, in AVALANCHE as a tough brawler who fearlessly engaged in any fight and won most of the time, she punched him and heard a sickening crack – that nose of his broke. He collapsed in a heap, passed out, dead like a fused light bulb because of the pain – his blood ran down from his nostrils like red watercolour paint, staining his skin.

Dusting her hands and wondering when she would get a decent fight she looked around noticing looks of awe even though she threw her sword upon the ground, deeming herself far too used to her hands to be able to wield the metal as if it were part of her arm. If that were so, she'd accidentally use it like a fork or a throwing knife.

"Shit, did you see that? He destroyed James!"

Tifa smiled, happy that she hadn't changed in the least (even if her arms felt so sore she thought they'd fall off) – Tifa remained Tifa, her reflection she same as she'd always seen it and her mind as clear as newly fallen snow gently blanketed upon dirtied, hardened snow packed together like tightly encased sugar cubes.

Tifa felt different when she came here – though nothing in her old timeline remained for her to go back to but a barren wasteland with all her friends dead. At least they'd existed. Here they didn't know her, they're memories diverging from her own stream of consciousness, lost somewhere in the ocean they all connected to. She didn't know what made her feel emptier, when they were dead or when they hadn't the slightest clue what they had all been through together – Cloud never remembered any of it. In a way it kept him sane, not as alert on the balls of his feet, striking his sword at any moving leaf he thought meant danger. She wouldn't have to deal with the pain of the inability to help him as he wept all by himself. At least now that she knew that she could still fight, even if she could feel her knuckles burn because of the punch: that part of her world stayed the same even though the rest of it shattered like abused glass and evaporated like heated water.

"Class dismissed – go to your bunkers or train or something; just stop looking at the spectacle," Seagram told the students, who saluted once and got out of there, scurrying like mice across the floor, putting their weapons back where they belonged. She got a few curious looks on the way out, and James lay on the floor, unmoving like the dead, so similar to her friends back then. Looking at him made her frown and caused her eyes to sting with unreleased tears. Her throat clogged up like a plugged drain.

She wondered if this feeling would ever leave her.

Tifa shook her head, hoping her voice wouldn't quaver and looked at Seagram and said, "I told you I have no idea how to use a sword." She managed a weak grin.

"You're going to learn anyway, kid – your fists are strong as hell," Seagram said, picking the sword up off the ground and throwing it in the pile with the leftovers, "But sometimes, it ain't enough – if you blocked a sword like the General's, Rhapsodos' or Hewley's, they'd sever your hands off. The General would cut through them like paper, Rhapsodos would imbue magic into his sword and burn them off and Hewley would use brute force. Even his protégée, Fair, would prove to be a far tougher opponent for you - it'd be fucking hard for you. You need to rely on a sword as well or you'll get the shit kicked out of you by them." His eyes looked far off, distant even, though they seemed to be looking at James – maybe thinking on the long, toiling days he spent in war, blood spurting from finished victims, that sense of apathy he then felt when looking at a dead body as she felt when in the slums. Tifa wanted to know where his scars from, she knew there was a story behind each, a story he didn't feel like telling. He seemed weary despite the fact that his age could never be considered old. Tifa thought about Cloud, and thought about if he felt the same away about his memories – so muddled he couldn't talk about them, wouldn't – he wouldn't know how to start, the words would refuse to come. Seagram sighed. "I'll take this kid to the infirmary. I'd work on those sword skills of yours – if you didn't rely on your fists, you'd be the one on the floor, Lockhart," he said. Tifa nodded, knowing he spoke truth. Flexing her hands for a minute in front of her and looking at them, she had the determination to get rid of the strain that her entire body felt, just how exhausted she felt no matter the numerous battles she faced in the old timeline. Seagram narrowed his eyes, annoyed. "And I said I wouldn't be cleaning up cadets who got the shit beat out of them."

Tifa cracked a smile and her mind wandered off to how she would approach training and where the training room could be. The burn made her more determined than ever to get better, and to now face the new issue of using a sword. She never touched one before this day, and she could see how inferior her moves were compared to someone like Cloud who slashed through enemies with such ease that it came across as chopping onions with a knife. Looking at her hands, she wondered if she had the power to do it – to use a sword like a real SOLDIER member. Clenching her fist, her skin turning whiter and losing all its colour, she knew she had to make it happen. SOLDIERs weren't the same without swords, and she guessed that part of the examination was sword-fighting. Tifa only hoped that Zangan, wherever he was, would forgive her for turning back on martial arts for a short time and focusing on a sword for power.

"Sorry Master Zangan – I'll make sure I'll never give up martial arts," Tifa muttered. She would use it with her sword, like she did. No one said she couldn't.

* * *

_Word Count: 5 006_

_**Review Responses**:_

_**Iris:** Thank you so much for being my first review and dutifully reviewing every chapter I've come up with so far. It also honours me that you've read Blossoms in Midgar and decided to read this piece as well. I hope I continue to impress you and make you look forward to future updates. I'm glad you like the way I've written the characters and that you like Tifa's reaction to Sephiroth - it was honestly one of the things I was unsure about._

_**Pat**: I'm glad you're intrigued by my concept - I love Tifa as a character and I thought, well it seems more realistic that Cloud would be more mentally traumatized from everything he's gone though. Tifa would also, according to her selfless nature, want to help him. As for your question, I don't think it was confirmed that it was the last act, I always thought it was Genesis' interpretation after he finds out the meaning of the gift of the goddess. However, for the sake of this story, I always thought his psychological problems were more of a concern than the mystery of where LOVELESS' last act came from - so the core issues will remain the same in regards to his mental health, but I changed it so that the last act is in fact the confirmed last act. Genesis finds it to be a mystery because no one knows who wrote LOVELESS. Gah, I'm rambling - I hope this answered your question and I'm so happy you're engaged in the story!_


	5. Misfortune

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_Thank you for all the compliments everybody. Sorry I took so long to update, but here it is. Life sort of got in the way. But I hope this makes it up to you. Thank you to everybody who reviewed, as well as everybody who favourited, followed, or didn't do any of these but took the time to read my story – it means a lot to me even when I see hits on my traffic page._

_In this chapter, I hoped to create another scenario in which Tifa and Genesis could meet (although it's pretty awkward)and create a humorous, but pretty unfortunate situation that Tifa's trapped in. Please feel free to comment – to know that you're all reading means the world to me. I apologize again for the late update._

* * *

**Chapter V ~ Misfortune ~**

Tifa panted, holding her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. Her whole body felt like lead, and she didn't know how she managed to stand up, let alone walk to her room. She'd just had class with a man called Torturson that the students who failed and were kept back a year called The Torturer. When he first walked into the room, she made the mistake of judging him by his appearance. After all, his chubby cheeks, short stature and wide eyes made him seem innocent, child-like, not fitting of the name that his students gave him. Then, she learned that she made the wrong assumptions.

He narrowed his eyes and immediately sent everyone running. His voice could be heard from miles away and his cheeks turned red from the very stress of it all. All the students were forced to run through the sewers reached through the front of the building. Tifa's shins burned from mucking around in sewer water and mud caked itself in her short hair. The strength of the water astonished her and she had to force herself to walk as if she were through knee-high snow in Icicle. A few students collapsed there too, she remembered. Out of generosity, she pulled one out who managed to trip on sediment at the bottom and landed entirely in the water. He could have drowned.

After they made it back to the room in which they'd first met The Torturer, mud crusted in their hair, in their clothes, he'd smirked at them, looking them all over.

"You pussies tired out already? That was just a warm up," he told them.

Tifa frowned at his language before standing tall and saluting – then, lying through her teeth. "Sir, no sir: I can continue going. I'm not in the least bit tired, sir." The other students sent her warning glances, which she ever-so-wisely ignored.

"Is that so? We'll start a bit more of a warm up for all of you as well then." The Torturer smiled evilly, a telltale sign that he'd baited her into it. Tifa gulped, quite afraid now.

After that, he'd forced them all to run suicide laps up and around all the floors of the Shinra Building. The stairs could be easily accessed from the front of the building – the same ones she'd ran with Cloud and Barret when they'd gone to rescue Aeris so long ago. One time equated to enough, in her opinion, but apparently not, according to her current situation.

"_This ain't one of those… endless staircases, is it?"_

She remembered Barret's comment from that time and snickered. The burly man sweated and had pinkness in his cheeks, positively frightened of the possibility that it could be one of those endless staircases. Of course, back then, she'd brushed him off, saying that not even the slightest possibility existed that it could have been endless, only long. Barret frowned and continued to run, lagging behind her. She'd been too preoccupied with finding Aeris back then – no endless staircase would stop her. That woman risked everything to save Marlene, and Barret understood that too.

Regardless, the staircase seemed endless when she ran it now, up and down and forced her lungs to cooperate with her and not give up. Her bindings hurt more now that she tried to force herself to run and her breathing didn't come out the way Zangan always tried to teach her to when she exercised. The pain in her legs couldn't be compared to the pain in her chest.

By the time she'd made it back to her room after having The Torturer tell her that her job has been satisfactory, she didn't know whether she'd be able to wake up the next morning. Tifa also looked like any old urchin who'd spent her entire life on the streets, with the mud in her hair, on her face and on her uniform, and the thin stream of blood oozing from a split lip she received from an accident wherein she felt so tired that she fell down one set of stairs. She touched it and winced.

"Ouch," she mumbled, feeling the pain which resembled that of a bee sting.

She wondered whether her roommates also had The Torturer's class, and whether they would nearly as ruffed up as she did. Tifa imagined Lucian, his long hair propped up in a messy bird's nest on the top of his head, mud caked on as securely as hair dye would be, forcing his hair into a style it wouldn't naturally be in, let loose.. At least, even if she gave up her femininity, she understood how much better it'd been to have shorter hair that wouldn't drag her down.

Tifa prepared herself to put her clothes together and find a way to take a shower in the communal bath without being found out. The amount of shock that the other cadets would feel upon finding a woman in their shower, she didn't want to experience. Men and woman really weren't all that different in that respect. She knew she'd hear womanly screams, such as the stereotypical ones of housewives when they saw mice, as a first reaction – then, she would most certainly be expelled. That, she thought, could be knocked off her list of options. In order to save the world, she needed to be here where everything originated, where the first sprout sprung from the ground and began to spread mercilessly and violently across soft and fertile soil, destroying it.

* * *

Her room appeared to be vacant when she walked inside. Either her roommates were still in class, or they were taking showers with a truckload of other students in the communal bathrooms. Tifa gulped and hoped to Gaia there would be stalls and not that many people around. Carefully putting her clothes together in a small bag and hiding her bindings in a small roll, sandwiched between articles of clothing, she walked to the communal baths, rather nervously, for the shaking of her legs and her knees knocking together couldn't all be attributed to pain.

Sliding the transparent doors open, Tifa wished for the first time to be blind.

"Men have no shame, huh?" she whispered to herself as her eyes widened considerably, growing to the size of dinner plates though she wanted to close them completely, to forget she ever saw anything.

She could see her roommates among other cadets in the program, who looked pretty messed up due to The Torturer's training, split lips, bruises that looked as if they'd been created from partially washed off markers in a wide array of colours from a child's art kit, mud caked on skin and unexplainable gashes on their bodies. That wouldn't be an issue except for the problem that they pranced around the bathroom, naked as the day they were born, taking off their clothes before getting in the shower (of which they conveniently didn't care about the open curtains) and disinfecting cuts with cotton swabs. Tifa could see everything and felt nothing but mortification, though she was certain that they would feel worse if they knew that a woman saw every part of them.

"Oh, hey Teef, want to borrow some disinfectant? I can help you if you want," Taioh said, grinning rather sourly, while holding up a small bottle of antiseptic for her to see. "Kris ended up the worst out of all of us."

Indeed, she could see a black eye forming on Kris' skin which made him look distinctly like a raccoon along with several bruises he'd definitely gotten from nasty tumbles in the sewers.

Tifa struggled to find the words to explain her current feelings and also struggled to keep her eyes on his face. Taioh held a bar of soap in his hands. Silence from all the men ensued. She supposed that the humiliation still lasted from her fainting deal. If only they knew it'd been caused by Mako poisoning and not cafeteria food. She now had to deal with a bunch of unknown, naked men staring at her, thinking that she had male genitals.

"Ah, no that's okay. I'm going into the shower stall," Tifa explained softly, hoping that she kept a straight face and that her voice never wobbled. She shuffled over past several men and took one of the shower stalls, and made her way to close the curtains, unlike some of the other shameless parties were doing.

"Could it be that you don't want help because," Kris started, "you're worried about you size _down there_? We don't judge – so calm down!" When Tifa looked at his face, she found that nothing showed on it but the utmost seriousness. He honestly thought that the reason for her reluctance could only be the size of her non-existent _male parts_. Maybe she should have been worried about her size, considering she didn't _have any_. And really, Kris truly didn't know how unintentionally right he was – her reluctance _did_ stem from not having anything.

"Kris, stop talking like a moron," Lucian said, flicking Kris on the forehead. "Have some social tact." Kris pouted, looking thoroughly scolded.

Tifa thanked Lucian mentally, even if she knew he somehow meant it as a backhanded insult. But really, she should have felt complimented, womanly for one time in her life – considering they all thought she had small _parts_. At least it meant that in some backward, twisted way, like a knot that had doubled itself over several times, becoming nearly undoable.

Nothing remained in her but embarrassment, though she also had the strange urge to burst out laughing. Her soul left her body, mist that would join its kind from that of the hot showers, a mist carrying every bit of non-humiliating, not embarrassing, and slightly more positive emotions she possessed. She also knew that redness spread on her cheeks from seeing unknown men naked as well as her roommates.

"That would be a viable possibility," a random cadet said, one who looked thoroughly beaten up with bruises and with hair so disgusting, it smelled from the distance she stood, though she could vaguely see the blonde hair peeking out from behind dirtied, muddy strands – and plenty of snickers, of course, followed his statement. "After all, he acts like he has none! He pretty much acted like a blushing schoolgirl in front of the three Firsts."

Tifa glared at him before stating, "I do recall acting normally, thanks. You're probably just jealous since you're in love with all three of them. Imagine how they would react knowing you have wet dreams of them _every single day_."

A low blow indeed, Tifa.

But really, she should have thanked him for saying that she acted like she had none. She didn't want to act like that anytime soon. Tifa wondered vaguely if any other men existed in the body of cadets that remotely weren't as shameless, acted like the three Firsts. But really, they could have secretly been like this too – after all, she always expected Lucian to be one private about his showers. But, Genesis, Sephiroth or Angeal? Not a chance. She thought they would have more class.

"Wait, I don't!"

The snickers and loud laughs from her roommates, minus Lucian, followed again after her comments and she felt strangely accomplished. Wearing a proud smirk on her face, she shut the curtains. Looking around her, she decided to swing her towel over the cubicle wall between her stall and the next and her clothes, both new and old on the metal bar which held the curtain rings. Then, she put her old bindings, rolled into a small ball, in the pocket of her dirtied uniform pants, before placing her roll of unused bindings on the ledge of her shower stall. Relaxing then, she turned on the hot water and let herself calm down as it rained down upon her skin.

The bruises and cuts hurt, burned as if a brand marked her, but she felt strangely refreshed, as if all the pain in the world couldn't stop her from feeling at least a little satisfied she completed such a difficult task, her first stepping stone to saving everybody, to save Sephiroth, Cloud, Genesis, Zack, all of her friends from AVALANCHE and most of all, stop Aeris from dying prematurely. Even if they never remembered her, even if they didn't know what she did, and didn't remember what they had been through together.

She allowed herself this time to think about everybody, to think about Aeris, what she did in the slums so long ago at this time, selling flowers to citizens who truly didn't realize how rare flowers in Midgar were. No one could grow them but her.

Tifa remembered one conversation they had and the memory formed itself in her mind almost immediately, one of the nights she talked to Aeris, when they reached Cosmo Canyon.

"_I'm all alone," Aeris whispered thoughtfully, staring at her slightly calloused palms, roughness she only obtained by travelling with them, fighting with her staff. She clenched her fists before tears cascaded down her face, cool like rain._

"_You have all of us, Aeris. We'll never leave you," Tifa said comfortingly when she, by chance, heard the girl mumbling this so sadly to herself, crying all alone as if she had no one else hold her, make her feel safe and loved. "You're not alone."Tifa sat down beside Aeris, munching on a piece of bread, courtesy of dinner._

_Aeris shook her head, her braid swinging left and right, her piece of Materia she always called useless, glinting under the stars, looking every bit like a diamond. "That's not what I meant. I'm the last Ancient, aren't I? I really… am alone."_

_Tifa didn't understand why she chose to torture herself thinking that no one else remained in the world like her, only because her blood differed. Tifa looked at the stars as she lay down on the ground, wondering if Aeris didn't realize how lonely she felt too, in a different sense. She wondered if they would ever be able to find a friend in one another, a true friend. Then, she remembered – Cloud loved Aeris, had trouble showing it, but definitely did. Tifa felt more alone. She would never understand Aeris' version of the word 'alone' when she had so many people surrounding her._

"I really was… selfish, wasn't I? Only focusing on how alone I felt," Tifa whispered, concentrating on the soothing feeling of the rain which reminded her so much of Aeris' tears, soothing pain, clearing her mind from the fog which accumulated within, stopping her marginal head pounding which came back occasionally, signifying that Rayleigh told the truth in that she couldn't fix it. She only focused on how alone she felt, when she thought no one needed her, that Aeris fulfilled all her duties, and managed to capture Cloud's heart – a love she wanted for a long time. But she could never bring herself to hate Aeris, she loved her like a sister. It didn't make the pain any less,but she brushed it off as trivial now compared to the girl's pain.

She never understood why she felt alone – they didn't care about her Ancient blood. They found a friend in Aeris, her blood didn't matter.

But now, she completely understood how Aeris felt. Tifa felt the same due to being a woman in an all-male environment, but mostly because only she knew the truth of the future, only she carried that burden. She knew that Sephiroth would ruin everything, that Zack would die trying to play the part of the hero he, in heart, always was, and Genesis would cause the destruction in the first place. And Angeal would die too, despite his ability to maintain pure, good-heartedness through all evil and all grudges.

No one else knew but her, no one else carried such pain in this respect but her, no one else had the responsibility to change everything, to rewrite history and start a new novel from billions of blank pages, millions of crossroads, and only one pen to write it all with, and only one mind, so confused and muddled, not certain which fork in the road to take with this one chance and no eraser. And as a con, none of the characters would remember her, since the character became the editor of a story already written– they played their parts, and she tried to write them like so, to prevent a fatal blot of ink from sinking onto the white pages. Even if she had roommates who didn't seem entirely unpleasant, no one knew her true self, no one knew the future but her.

Tifa heard a slight clang of metal, but didn't think anything of it, as she went about her business washing her hair, her body, before turning off the tap, feeling thoroughly refreshed even though her bruises stung.

"I wonder if I should go see Rayleigh," Tifa said. Ah, yes, Rayleigh knew of her identity, sort of, that made her feel less alone. But Rayleigh didn't know the details of her purpose for sneaking in.

She took her roll of bandages off the ledge she placed it on and began to wrap her chest tightly before reaching for her towel. Once she put it around her securely, she reached for her clothes on the metal rod and didn't find them there at all.

That must have been the sound from earlier. She took a quick glance outside by shifting the curtain to the side a little and didn't find them on the floor. Someone took them.

"Shit," she cursed panicking mentally, like alarm bells to signal evacuation just went off after a fire. "What am I going to do?" Now she felt truly alone in that small shower stall, unable to escape, more alone than she felt normally in this world.

* * *

Genesis walked down the hallway slowly, making his way to the elevator. He planned to go see Rayleigh, to hear about the problem with that cadet: Teef Lockhart. The way he fainted truly couldn't be attributed to cafeteria food, no matter how terrible. "Unless the cook indeed wants to poison members of the Shinra military," he said under his breath rather sarcastically. "It's such a shame that misfortune befalls the one cadet familiar with LOVELESS." He walked past the communal washrooms for the cadets and saw a curious sight on the way to his destination.

Several cadets stood in the hallway, snickering to themselves as they huddled close together like a pack of wolves. They held several articles of clothing – that caught his attention. The clothes clearly weren't theirs.

"Now that idiot can shove it – he wouldn't walk out here naked if he could barely do it in there. I swear, he just has no balls or something," one said, grinning.

Genesis narrowed his eyes as he struggled to remember where exactly he saw that face before – that idiotic grin told it all, he would never forget something as striking as that.

_Genesis travelled to Torturson's class – Lazard asked him to deliver a letter, yet another duty that, last time he checked, wasn't listed on his job description. He passed the training room on the way, and out of curiosity, looked inside, to see which cadets he could see failing this day. Watching an inexperienced cadet try to swing a sword clumsily and with such arrogance made his day, as well as when they attempted to use Materia and managed to not even get the slightest spark out one._

_He opened the door to the training facility and his eyes met with a truly comedic sight._

_A cadet, with (clearly bleached) blonde hair and stupid grin on his face attempted to wield one of the heftiest swords Shinra had to offer, the Buster Sword – a formidable blade that most people, by rule, stayed away from. Angeal and his puppy were one of the few who actually learned how to use it. _

_The Buster Sword didn't fit him, the cadet with a slender build that would make even a twig look chubby in comparison. He doubted that any muscle accumulated on that bone of a body._

_Then, he began to nitpick – his form was all off, and his expression, too overconfident. Gensis narrowed his eyes and said, while walking in, "I never knew you cadets were so abysmal at swordsmanship. You look as awkward as a mere toddler wearing the clothes of upperclassmen more than ten times his age."_

"_Commander Rhapsodos, sir!" The cadet answered, saluting him, but not dropping his sword even with the insult. "I'm not terrible at the sword," he whispered, hoping that Genesis wouldn't catch it._

"_But you are," Genesis answered airily, looking around the cadet. "This is private training, no? No doubt you wouldn't want anyone else to see that performance." _

"_I can prove you I'm not bad with the sword! I can use the Buster Sword, and not even you would be able to stop a sword this big," he said, looking awful proud of himself._

_Genesis raised an eyebrow and stuffed the letter Lazard sent him to deliver in the folds of his pocket before holding out Rapier in front of him. "Prove it."_

_The cadet smirked._

_And not even five seconds went by before Genesis utterly destroyed him, his blows so powerful that the cadet's grip on his own sword faltered. The Buster Sword went flying, embedding itself somewhere in the ground nearby. Genesis placed Rapier at the cadet's neck. "Do you yield?" The cadet nodded fearfully and Genesis removed Rapier from his throat. "This proves to you that it's about skill and not the size of your sword that can defeat your opponent. Your skill really is at the lowest section of the totem pole right now – and your arrogance doesn't help."_

_He turned around swiftly, walking right back out where he came. "The wind sails over the water's surface – quietly but surely…"_

"Ah, it's that cadet I saw a while ago, one of the worst I've seen," Genesis mumbled before he made his way over to the two. "You two, cadets – those aren't your clothes you're holding. May I assume you seek to bully some poor cadet by leaving them naked in the communal bath? You have no class, no class indeed." Genesis clucked his tongue disappointedly and watched small beads of sweat form on the foreheads of the cadets due to pure nerves alone, a glistening layer over skin which looked like transparent sheets of cling wrap over bread.

"You're wrong sir – these are our clothes, sir!" one squeaked – the one with terrible swordsmanship who now learned his place.

"Yeah!" his friend agreed, nodding his head furiously, so much that it would put the fastest Chocobo set to race in the Gold Saucer to shame, at lightning pace.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Genesis snapped, snatching the clothes from the arms of Mr. I-Suck-At-Swordsmanship and stretching the clothes out for him to see. "Apparently I just thought you failed with the sword, but now you fail with observational skills too. These clothes would rip if you put them on." He sighed, feeling a headache coming on. "You two, run one-hundred laps around this floor. You've pissed me off enough."

"Sir, yes sir," both of them answered before running off to get away from him as quickly as possible. Genesis cracked his knuckles as he chuckled over the thought of just how much fear he brought into cadets these days. He hardly had to try.

"Dang, now Lockhart's probably going to get his clothes back."

That piqued his interest. So the cadet they wanted to leave naked in the bath without a way out was cadet Lockhart, the one cadet interested in LOVELESS. He found it strange how such misfortune seemed to be drawn to the cadet, as magnets drew in metal. "A stickler for trouble, isn't he?"

He decided to do his one good deed for the day and walk into the cadet baths, a place he hadn't been in since so long ago when he used to be the designated outcast in his batch along with Sephiroth, the strange, moody, outrageously talented cadet with not one friend. At least he had Angeal back then, back when no one else would talk to him and he wouldn't even bother to give most people the time of day. In any case, helping the cadet now would allow him to ask about his condition. He didn't even know Lockhart had gotten released from Rayleigh's office.

A cadet who knew LOVLESS even a little deserved at least a little bit of his attention. However, if the cadet's swordsmanship turned out to be just as abysmal as his bully, he'd pretend he never caught his attention.

"Cadet Lockhart – I found some of your dear friends holding clothes that clearly weren't theirs," Genesis said when he entered the small bathroom. How glad he felt to have his own bathroom in his large quarters as a First. He never really thought about, until now, what a luxury that could be for any individual – now looking at the cramped stalls and dirty, wooden benches. He heard his footsteps echo through the room, ominous and slow, small clacks resembling the initial tap of piano keys, the noise humming against tiled walls, clear like the surface of blue beach water. He found the stall with the showerhead still dripping minimal amounts of water, _drip drop, _like the soft drizzle of rain in spring. Genesis put the clothes in his arm over the metal bar with the shower curtain rings. "Though I do wonder why you worry so much since you're a man. You may have been caught by higher authority in Shinra, but you would've been able to make it to your room by then," he mused thoughtfully.

"Commander Rhapsodos, right?" His soft voice reached Genesis' ears, sounding very, very relieved, as if a giant boulder has been lifted off his shoulders.

"Indeed," Genesis answered leaning against the wall, hearing the slight shuffling of clothes signalling that the young cadet was getting changed. "I see you were getting bullied."

"Cadets have nothing better to do when they find someone to make fun of. When I collapsed in the cafeteria, random idiots like that find it funny to tease me – not that I care," Tifa said. She quickly put on her clothes, just a bit paranoid that he would find out about her gender. She didn't need that now, even though she did feel the utmost gratitude toward him for helping her. Not even a First-Class SOLDIER as laid back as Genesis Rhapsodos would accept the fact that a woman snuck her way into the ranks. No doubt, he would find the most brutal way to punish her. Just thinking about it made her feel nauseous, like she had just eaten something bad that wanted to fly up from the pits of her stomach, all the way to her mouth, and then out in the form of projectile vomit. Fastening the last of the buttons and making sure that she looked drastically less female, she opened the curtain, coming face to face with Genesis.

"I can agree with that: _m__y friend, the fates are cruel,"_ he told her somewhat sympathetically, rehearsing LOVELESS with such expertise and silk in his voice, that any famous storyteller would be brought to shame and even the most emotionless of people would find it in them to muster up a bit of their long lost feelings. He prided himself on it, of course.

"That's LOVELESS again, isn't it? Tifa asked looking a bit more eager, not looking as sullen as she felt due to the terrible situation that fate placed her in. That poem made her feel closer to Aeris and Goddess Minerva and all her friends. And, having conversation with Genesis would be good. She had to get to know him in order to help him, in order to stop him from committing the same sins again, in order to stop him from jumpstarting the tragedy from the beginning, to stop him from providing the initial force required to push a large stone down a cliff and send it tumbling until at last, it reached the bottom and the fate of the world would be unchangeable.

"At least some cadets have taste," he remarked dryly. "Most people can't recognize real literature these days." He snapped his fingers and realized again, what he originally came for. "Ah, I was going to visit Rayleigh to check on your condition – but this does save time. What was the diagnosis?"

Tifa panicked for a moment, wondering what to say. It's not as if she could just say she had Mako poisoning and be done with it. Genesis would her horribly suspicious and likely never speak to her with trust – she would never be able to get closer to him and find out the main issue for why he did what he did. He would forever be a flame, with no water to douse him. "I… uh… Rayleigh said it was over-exhaustion," Tifa answered lamely, knowing full well how terrible her lie was.

Genesis narrowed his eyes, sensing the lie but not commenting on it, figuring that if he so chose to, he shouldn't have poked his nose in anyway. What a strange thought it'd be to think that the information concerned him in some way. Ridiculous - perhaps when pigs flew. He wondered more about the fighting prowess of this cadet and if he would meet his standards. "I have a request to make of you. If you don't comply, I'll take this opportunity right now to kick you out of the SOLDIER program," Genesis began with a mild threat, said so normally, it made Tifa wonder how often he distributed them, almost like a newspaper delivery boy doing his job on his route, _delivering newspapers_.

"Meet me on the SOLDIER Floor tomorrow at twenty-hundred sharp. Don't be late and be certain to get a good sleep, Teef Lockhart."

Tifa didn't know what he expected of her, nor how to feel when he walked out of the washroom without one more glance at her. She wondered if she should have considered it a blessing that, as a cadet, she could spend more time with him, or a nightmare since, knowing Genesis, he could full well kick her ass if he found out about her secret.

* * *

_Words: 5 094_


	6. Anxious Heart

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_Hello, all. Finally got around to writing this. I hope it's not disappointing. It was a pretty difficult chapter for me to get down. I introduced Zack as well and I hope that my portrayal of him was accurate and that Tifa's reaction to her surroundings is accurate. Even someone like her is going to have some fear._

_I just realized how much I listen to the FFVII soundtrack while writing my stories. Or even music in general. I hope I'm not the only one. I feel blank without listening to something to get my inspiration pumping._

_Thank you for all the kind reviews, follows, favourites and reads. To see such awesome people enjoying this story really makes me the happiest writer on the planet._

* * *

**Chapter VI ~ Anxious Heart~**

Even if Genesis told her to get a good rest so that she could put up a fight the next day with his implication of a spar or fight, or training of some kind, she found it hard to do so. Numerous scenarios ran through her mind – scenarios not at all pleasant, defeat fully tangible, unlike victory. And even more than that, her nerves trembled with both anxiousness and trepidation, like the plucked string of a harp, vibrating quickly when the fingers touching it moved on to the next. Reluctantly, Tifa supposed she fell to fear, that burning sensation in her heart, butterflies fluttering nervously about in her stomach, not colourful and beautiful, but pale, losing all pinks and blues, oranges and reds, to a black hole which absorbed every positive emotion.

To hopefully get exhausted enough to catch some sleep, she walked to one of the training rooms for cadets. It brought back a strange sense of nostalgia when she thought about it. Zangan always used to make her think about their spars – where exactly she went wrong, where she screwed up, and as a result, she felt a strong resentment toward herself and toward her ability to make mistakes. She always possessed a hot temper since she was in diapers, like a boiling pot of water left on the stove for too long. One small bit of frustration would knock her off her rocker, adding more and more heat until she practically released steam from her evaporated frustration. Zangan fixed that a bit since martial arts required rationality and discipline. She needed a way to let off that steam, and as a result, found it by beating up punching bags where she trained back in Nibelheim. That way, Tifa never over-boiled.

Walking to the training room now, she looked inside, taking a quick peek hoping that no one occupied it. A quiet atmosphere that soothed her aching muscles and allowed her to think with a cool head always made training more invaluable. But, she saw a figure – she wasn't the only one who needed to train this late at night. Her eyes softened looking at him and she wanted to extend one arm toward him as a last act of desperation, one that would pull him back up from his fall so that he wouldn't hit the sharp, jagged rocks at the bottom of a cliff when he took his tumble, one that would save him from the violent waves crashing upon the surface of them.

Tifa found it painful looking upon Zack now as he swung his swords at invisible opponents, surely taking them down had they been alive, perfecting his maneuvers, side-stepping, and planting his feet with balance on the ground so his own power wouldn't retaliate against him as he swung with a firm resolution. He caught her glance and sent her a grin – the same one she remembered from Nibelheim when she'd been his and Sephiroth's guide. Her heart hurt.

"Hey, you couldn't sleep either?" he asked her, holding his sword limply in his hand. He grinned sheepishly before saying, "I thought I was the only one who had trouble sleeping around here."

Reluctantly, she joined him. When she looked at him now, so happy and healthy – it made her wonder if she reached out to him, if he would simply disappear, shatter into pieces and vaporize into a light, unnoticeable mist. She found it hard these days, to tell figments of her imagination from reality – the line blurred into an indistinguishable blot of ink thinning itself out slowly, seeping through the creases of aged paper. Her memories and what actually occurred coincided and differed so greatly, and it seemed like such a strange reality to be the artist painting an entire storyboard from scratch, one originally created by another so drawn to tragedy, so drawn to sorrow and grief.

"Yeah, I just had a lot to think about," Tifa answered him vaguely, giving him a small, tired smile. She extended her hand out toward him so that he would shake it. "Cadet Teef Lockhart, sir."

He didn't need to know that when he took her hand, she also meant it as a promise, that she would never let him take that leap of faith to die trying to save his friends, that he would have no need to. She would pull him up from the brink of no return if she had to. Tifa had enough of people around her dying and taking loads upon their shoulders, bearing it silently, never once complaining. Her handshake was surprisingly tight on his, despite her fatigue – her ultimatum to reverse any tragedy; she would take the burden this time since Cloud worked so hard to take hers in their old life.

"SOLDIER Second-Class, Zack Fair. " He puffed his chest out proudly. Zack saw her looking at him closely and unwillingly flushed a little – the cadet in front of him looked a bit too feminine, and could have easily passed off as a girl. "Uh, what's the matter?"

Tifa shook her head. "Nothing, don't worry about it." She didn't want to tell him that she wanted to ensure she wasn't seeing things and Zack really stood in front of her. "Why are you in the cadet training rooms? You're a SOLDIER."

He looked a little embarrassed now. "You know, I'm Angeal's student, right?" Tifa nodded - she heard of Zack from the other students as well, due to the fame of his mentor, and due to his own skill apparently, he was well on his way to becoming a First. He just didn't know she knew more about him than what she let on. "Well, 'cause whenever I train up there by myself, doing drills that 'Geal's given me, I _always_ run into Genesis. Always. Seriously, I have the worst luck. The guy finds it fun to mock me and he corrects me so much he might as well be my second mentor."

"Genesis…" Tifa repeated. That made her even more frightened of their battle to come. More so than her defeat though, she supposed that her worry more stemmed from the fact that she would disappoint him as a warrior when she had been through so much. She didn't want that – not ever. "He does seem a bit… overbearing."

"Ah, you know him?" Tifa gave him a small smile and a nod while Zack rattled on, "He tells me how to improve on my form and how nothing's good enough – and he calls me a puppy. What part of me looks like a puppy? Geez, even Seph's better than he is, and that guy's a perfectionist." He pouted but then it swiftly changed into a smile. "But maybe that's the reason I practice down here. When I show him when he next sees me, there's always at least a small compliment."

Maybe she felt that way too, she supposed. She didn't want to disappoint Genesis – but not only because she wanted to be worthy, but because she didn't want her ass kicked, nor her secret to be found out. Tifa gestured to his bangs and stated pointedly, "Sir, if you don't mind, your bangs kind of make you look like a puppy."

"They do not," he protested indignantly, but then grinned again, sheepishly. "Don't call me sir – makes me feel old. Just Zack's fine!"

"Alright, Zack then," she agreed. She found it strange calling him 'sir' anyway.

"So, how do you know Gen?" He looked curious, interested – and Tifa wanted to talk to him, to preserve that thought that she wasn't simply dreaming and that Zack really _was _dead, not alive and well like she thought.

"First-Class Rhapsodos along with First-Class Hewley and General Sephiroth sat with me on my first day in the cafeteria," Tifa answered honestly. She didn't want to talk about how nauseous she felt seeing Sephiroth – even if he proved himself to be completely different, not at all insane like how he'd been in her timeline. "And… I couldn't sleep. First-Class Rhapsodos wants to meet me tomorrow, for either training or a spar. I don't know, really. I just think I'm getting cold feet." His earnest look, so eager to listen and help, made him so easy to trust, so easy to blurt out all her problems to in the hope that they would disappear, scatter to every corner of Gaia, to the plants and trees, animals, so they could all share her burden. But then she remembered she had to censor herself, only tell him what she could. No one could share her burden, she remembered, because she looked on at everyone from behind a glass screen, like a prisoner talking to those from the outside world, she could never join in, she remained completely isolated.

"Really?" Zack grinned. "Never thought he'd take interest in a cadet. Why've you got cold feet?"

Tifa walked around him to a large red punching bag hanging down from the ceiling and took a swing at it, hoping to relax herself. She felt herself opening up to Zack, like he had the key and that all her deepest secrets had been unleashed after a long sleep in a wooden treasure chest. She felt the tension in her knuckles as she pulled back, and frowned, now wondering why she didn't even remember to glove her hands. "I don't want to disappoint him, I guess." She didn't know how true that was until the words escaped her lips. It wasn't that she was just afraid of her secret getting out. If she disappointed him, likely she would never get to save those she cherished. It was both a blessing and a curse that she got to spend time with Genesis so soon. She didn't feel ready and felt the tremble of her heart, like the suspense smartly placed when an entire orchestra went silent, waiting one beat, then two, before they resumed their fast paced melody of highs and lows, flutes and brasses melding together to create some semblance of harmony.

"I know how you feel, I guess," Zack supplied helpfully. "I'm always really nervous about disappointing 'Geal, Seph and Gen. But then, I think about the fact that even if I do, I came here for a reason, and that keeps me going." He swung an arm around her shoulder and smiled, seeing the cadet so down. He looked so little and vulnerable – it reminded him a lot of that cadet he became friends with, that chocobo. He wondered if Genesis'd decide to train this cadet – it was rare he ever took interest in anyone. The cadet he talked to now must've been remarkable. "So, whenever you feel that way, you should think about the reason you're here, right?"

"Reason…" Tifa knew her reason, and used that to strengthen her resolve. Genesis wouldn't scare her, Sephiroth wouldn't, and neither would Angeal. They were amongst those she wanted to help as well, to give them a second chance where they wouldn't be bound by tragedy, even their friendships breaking. She would sacrifice all her friendships so that the world would be safe, and those three could continue to be there for one another. Even if her friends never remembered her, never laughed with her, left her in a barren wasteland all by herself where she would only be able to watch them entertain each other and help each other through their hard times, as long as they never died in front of her in the same manner they did before, as long as she could prevent that, she would take sadness and fear any day. She turned to Zack then, giving him a small smile. "Hey, Zack – why did you join SOLDIER?"

"Me? I joined SOLDIER to become a hero!" He grinned as he said it and Tifa wanted to snap a picture, remind herself that she wasn't deluded, wasn't crazy. Tifa wanted to protect him too.

"You'll be an awesome hero, Zack," she told him, seeing him glow at the praise.

"Thanks, Teef! I hope so!"

Really, he would never know that he did become a hero, a splendid hero who took in so many bullets without an ounce of complaint, a hero who protected Cloud and tried to take down Sephiroth. He was the kind of hero that little kids read about in adventure books that ended tragically, where the hero, the martyr, died trying to save everything he cherished.

She_ would_ change that. Tifa promised herself.

* * *

When she eventually went to sleep, even though her conversation with Zack alleviated some of the pain and stress she felt from her situation and the anxiety she had from meeting Genesis the next day, her sleep was still anything but restful. She struggled in her sleep, tossing and turning, sending her blankets folding over one another, this way and that, like the soft folds of caramel in a candy bar.

Those headaches came back slightly, letting her know that the Mako poisoning still took refuge inside of her like Aeris, Minerva, and Cloud's memories. One memory resonated in her mind, one that she shared with Cloud.

"_Tifa,do you feel nervous?" Cloud asked her, sitting on his bed, looking worse for wear. Large bags were prominent under his eyes and he looked pale – he hadn't slept well in weeks. _

"_Of course, we all do. We're going to face Sephiroth, it's frightening," Tifa admitted freely, taking a seat next to him, clasping his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers, hoping that she could comfort him just a little. His expression scared her, so hollow as if he'd just seen a ghost flash before his eyes, disappearing into a nearby wall. Perhaps it was a ghost he saw, she thought, the ghost of Zack who died, the ghost of Aeris who had been killed by Sephiroth – she would never know. She grew to accept that she would never understand him, never share that bond that he and Aeris seemed to share with one another. "But, we'll do it. We'll take down Sephiroth so he won't hurt anyone anymore."_

_He was silent, though he took in what she said like a sponge. Tifa saw his expression – he was thinking about Aeris, how she died, that Sephiroth did it. Though it was an inopportune time and it made her feel slightly ugly inside, she couldn't help the surge of jealousy that surfaced. She wondered if she ever got hurt, if Cloud would even think about her in a slightly fond manner. Tifa frowned, knowing that he probably wouldn't._

"_We'll avenge Aeris," he promised, getting up, releasing her hand from his. That empty feeling when he did that, she couldn't help. Tifa thought that they were important to one another – maybe everything was a lie. Maybe she was the only one who cherished their bond. At least, she mused, at least she held the same status as every one of their comrades, everyone in AVALANCHE._

"_Do you think I'm a little special at least?" Tifa whispered as he left, not saying anything more, caught up in the sounds of a broken record player, repeating the same movement, the same harmony of notes which signified Aeris' death. Tifa's theme was lost._

"Hey, Teef, wake up!"

Tifa woke up with a shock, sitting up immediately. She felt cold, and her skin felt clammy and sweaty – not a particularly nice combination. She saw Taioh looking at her with a concerned expression, frowning.

"Hey, you okay? You starting tossing around in your sleep and crying," he explained, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. "Nightmare? Probably, right? Didn't really seem like a wet dream to me," he joked in an effort to cheer her up a bit. "Seemed kind of serious."

Tifa raised her fingers to her cheeks and felt the unmistakable wet trails left by tears. Her eyes even felt watery, like if she let go, all her tears would spill without control, unbound like a waterfall, not stopping. She mourned at the fact that even still, Cloud controlled her emotions so securely, almost as if he unknowingly held a leash secured tightly around her collar. She always followed him, always did everything for him – it hurt to be left behind.

"Just a dream about a friend of mine," Tifa whispered, frowning. She pulled the sheets up to her neck in an effort to warm herself against the chill that made goose-bumps surface on the back of her arms. "It hurts thinking about him even though he's such a good friend of mine. I guess I didn't feel all that appreciated." She wanted to say_ 'she didn't feel like a woman around him',_ but couldn't, for obvious reasons. It seemed that her meeting with Genesis stockpiled all the stress on her, and she found herself thinking about memories she hadn't for some time. Nausea bubbled in the pit of her stomach.

"Sometimes we can all be stupid to one another," Taioh told her, leaning back against the wall. "We don't realize what we have until we've just about lost it. Your friend probably will realize how important your friendship was eventually."

When Tifa thought of the look in Cloud's eyes when he was about to die, when he looked at her with regret, he hoped that at least she was considered a good friend of his. "I hope so," she settled with. She supposed it didn't really matter anymore, considering that here, her role only included the friendly neighbor-girl of his. And here, her goal was to save everyone from an untimely death, including Zack Fair, who would die as a martyr, a hero who threw away his life for her childhood friend. Tifa would always be thankful toward him. And in some way, she felt she owed a debt to that man, even though she knew that Zack did it all of his own accord. Her first step was Genesis, to find some way to spend time with him, to find some way to stop him from telling Sephiroth everything. For some reason, she found Genesis to be the greatest tragedy of their story – when she saw him, so bright and healthy, so flamboyant and confident, she found it hard to believe that he would fall from grace so much.

"Something else on your mind?" Taioh asked, seeing her blank look, like a canvas about to be used by an artist, but with nothing currently painted on it.

"I have to meet with First-Class Rhapsodos tomorrow, probably a sword fight or something…" she trailed off unsurely. "And I have to impress him somehow."

Taioh grinned. "Lucky. Rhapsodos hasn't taken interest in any cadet, apparently. You must've done something to hook him. Maybe you'll become his student like Fair is to Hewley." He pat her back though, trying to comfort her. "It's alright to be nervous, but think about why you're in this program. Try your best and whatever happens, happens, you know?

Reason – the word came up again, her reason for being here, for going to such extremes as even throwing away her gender. Zack said the same thing. "Hey, thanks, Taioh. I won't disappoint you." And she meant it. No amounts of nightmares or stress were going to get the best of her when all her friends' lives lay in her hands. She would do her best against Genesis and keep in mind that everything happened for a reason. If it didn't work out, she would try to get her foot in the door some other way. She found no point crying about her situation, and then decided, to shove all the depressing melodies to the back of her mind to clear her head, to think coolly and rationally like a SOLDIER should have been able to do.

"No problem – that's what friends are for, right?" He give her a small smile and ruffled her hair a little before making his way to his own bed, wondering briefly why his roommate looked and acted so much like a woman. The resemblance to any girl really was uncanny. He must have been deprived, for his heart to thrum fast around another guy. He frowned before settling into a nice sleep.

_Friend, _she hadn't heard that word in so long, and to hear now that in this world, she didn't stand alone comforted her greatly, like an embrace swallowing her, cocooning her from anything depressing that swerved her way. Even if that word didn't protect her completely, since her friends didn't know her situation, she felt lucky to have them, people like Taioh and Kris, and maybe even reluctantly, Lucian.

* * *

"Not even on time, but _early. _Are you certain you don't have a crush on me? It seems rather like you do," Genesis stated confidently, in his usual manner as he saw the cadet sit on one of the lounge chairs on the SOLDIER Floor that evening.

"Excuse me, First-Class Rhapsodos, but I wasn't early – you were _half an hour late_," Tifa stated dryly, looking at him pointedly. She got up from the couch and followed him to the training room. He placed his hand on a high-tech looking device on the wall beside the door. The glowing panel approved his entry and the door opened dramatically and noisily, much like the man beside her, she mused. And how did she know that the man wanted to perfect his appearance before stepping out his front door, and that caused him to waste thirty minutes.

"I couldn't have myself looking like a ruffian, now could I?" he explained nonchalantly, walking in without another word. Tifa doubted he_ could_ look like a ruffian even if he tried. On him, she found it hard even imagining one hair out of place. The room was large, and empty. A collection of weapons hung on the far side. Genesis gestured to them and said, "I took the liberty of choosing some weapons for you and putting them up there. Feel free to choose one, then we spar."

The moment she dreaded came quickly. She swallowed and made her way to the selection of swords, choosing a lightweight one she could possibly discard in the middle of her match, giving her the flexibility to attempt socking Genesis in the face if she wanted to.

"I've also given myself a handicap – no Materia, what a shame. I think it'd be fun burning you to a crisp." After that statement, Tifa understood fully why people considered Genesis Rhapsodos a sadist.

She stood across from him, willing herself to remember her purpose, her reason for going through all this trouble. She glared at him before saying determinedly, "Even if you wanted, I wouldn't let you burn me to a crisp."

"Determined look you have there, I'm looking forward to this," he exclaimed, standing in a battle ready position, as graceful as a tiger. Even without him doing anything, Tifa felt his overwhelming power. But she could do it, she could hold her own against him with her resolve. She would bet everything on this moment, everything. She held out her sword out in front of her too, a considerably less polished battle ready-pose, but it didn't matter. He held out his sword in front of him and smirked. "Let's dance, then."

Without one more word of warning, he darted forward, lightning fast like quicksilver, becoming no more than a red blur against his surroundings. All Tifa could do was hold her sword out in front of her. They met with a loud clang that seemed to reverberate through the entire room. Wind brushed by her and the soft tendrils of his hair brushed against her face. Her knees buckled under the very force of his swing, quickly giving out. Her wrists shook from the very pressure of being forced to bear the weight of her sword.

With a simple flick of his flexible wrist, Genesis changed directions. Tifa was forced to swing at a phantom who'd long passed. Giving her the liberty of keeping her life, Genesis swung with the hilt of his blade, Rapier. No more than an ounce of his power, she was still flung aside like no more than a pest when he appeared behind her, hitting the wall rather harshly.

"Is that all?" he taunted. Tifa already felt weary, and beads of sweat trailed down the skin of her legs, and settled securely on her arms like glue, sticky and uncomfortable. Forcing herself to ignore the pain of her back, she launched herself at him like a wildcat, ready to fight tooth and nail to accomplish what she needed to.

He sidestepped her and hit her again. She screeched, feeling the pain in her side. Everywhere she swung, he moved away. It reminded her so much of her dreams – what was real versus what was simply a figment of her imagination. The only evidence of him ever situating himself where she swung was the last glimpse of his leather tailcoat.

"Perhaps I was wrong about you," he mused, looking at the cadet's beaten form, already seeing the bright blues and greens form on his skin, the purples of undeniable bruising. The cadet's stomach would probably feel much worse than the rest of his body in the morning. His left side suffered a lot of hits. "Your swordsmanship is shoddy at best." He pointed the sword at his neck. "Do you yield?"

Tifa breathed heavily, trying to get some oxygen pump through her lungs, trying futilely to give herself some energy. That disappointed look on his face, the tightening of his lips made her feel worse. Tifa willed herself to continue, rolling to the side, picking herself up and slamming her sword against his. "No," she hissed.

"At least your determination is admirable: _dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul, pride is lost. Wings stripped away, the end is nigh."_ He pushed back relentlessly then, appeared behind her with that speed of his, about to deliver another blow, one that would surely cause her to give up. "It seems your luck has run out, Lockhart," he whispered in her ear.

A shiver travelled down her spine before she closed her eyes.

"_Your swordsmanship is shoddy at best." _

Maybe he was trying to give her a hint of some kind. Her swordsmanship was shoddy and this was considered a real battle. She should have been doing everything possible to at least land a hit on him, no matter how outrageously powerful he was. Tifa turned around quickly intercepting the hilt of his blade with her own, using every single muscle in that arm of hers to hold him at bay. Gritting her teeth, she remembered what Master Zangan always told her.

_In a battle, don't focus on a skill you haven't perfected. Focus instead on your enemy and what you possess that can make them fall._

Tifa admitted it – her swordsmanship was shoddy. After all, she hardly picked up a blade before Minerva sent her tumbling into this timeline. She should have been focusing on anything she had to bring him down, the power of her arms and legs, using the sword as a prop since she didn't know how to use it with such grace like people like Genesis.

Turning around with speed that would even force Genesis to pay her a small compliment, she used the force from her spin to project it into her sword, weakening his hold for a split second. Dropping her own blade, she quickly crushed her hand over the one in which Genesis held his blade, forcing all her power into it.

His eyes widened, as he found himself unable to, for the time being, move his hand and hit her again with his sword. He struggled and she expected that. She didn't expect that with her un-enhanced, younger body, she would be able to fend him off for more than a few seconds. So using that time wisely, she swung her fist with all the determination she possessed, filled to the brim with her resolve, her reason for wanting to do this, for wanting to spar with him, for wanting to save every damn friend she possessed. And so, like a rocket, she punched him in the face - a sure place someone as vain as him would be able to remember when it bruised.

He winced slightly, then shook her off, pushing her to the ground, bridging himself on top of her as he looked down at her heavily breathing form. The silent question was asked. He no longer looked disappointed.

"I yield," Tifa told him, satisfied.

"You really do look like a woman," he stated, brushing his fingers across her cheek. Her breath hitched in her throat, both from nerves in their current position and from the fact that he could have already realized her secret. Genesis frowned, trying not to mind the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that he'd been about to kiss a man. Though, looking at the cadet's form, he found it hard to believe that he was male.

"I'm a man, I thought I told you already," Tifa protested, trying to will away the heat collecting in her cheeks at his stare, and the fact that he _hadn't yet gotten off of her! _She tried to phrase it as politely as possible. "Sir, would you mind getting off me?" So, perhaps she didn't phrase it as politely as she wanted to, but she got the point across quite clearly.

"Ah, does my position here make you uncomfortable?" he asked, giving her a smile so sly it would put a cunning fox to shame. "You do like me, hmm?" He leant closer to her on purpose, trying to get a reaction out of her. When she glared at him rather pointedly, he rose, and laughed like his life depended on it. "I told you I don't date men."

Tifa also stood then, furrowing her brows. "Please don't tease me, sir. I can assure you I don't have any romantic attachment to you."

"I don't believe you," he whispered in her ear, coming much closer to her than necessary, feeling a laugh bubble up in the pit of his stomach when he saw her lips tighten, and a reluctant blush make its way across her cheeks. "It's certainly fine, who wouldn't like a hero like me? Just consider that you have good taste." Tifa glared at him again, and he chuckled, annoying her to the bone. He waved off her glare dismissively, just as arrogant as a nobleman in an old fairy tale. "You hit my face and it will probably bruise, but regardless, I applaud your ability to be resourceful." He looked at her expression once before continuing, "As such, I have made the conclusion that you haven't disappointed me in the least. I'm going to take you on as a student. With my tutelage, I assure you that you'll pass the SOLDIER Exam. And if you don't, I will make sure you suffer." He distributed a threat again like it was completely normal and she had to laugh a bit.

"Alright," she found herself answering when relief settled in her heart. Genesis looked at her pointedly, as if to state even if she said no, he'd force her anyway. She snickered. Tifa passed the first step to her goal, even getting as lucky to be Genesis' student. She thanked Zack and Taioh for alleviating her worries, ensuring that they stood far back in her mind, not interfering with this battle. And though, to some people, it may have not looked like that great of a battle, considering that most of it involved her getting pushed around constantly, like a tough bully on a playground picking on his favourite victim at recess, she felt accomplished. With such an overwhelmingly powerful person like Genesis, Tifa knew at least one thing: that one hit she landed hadn't been a miracle. She'd earned it.

* * *

_Words: 5 312_


	7. Simple Enjoyment

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_It seriously felt so good typing in 'VII' for the chapter. I'm honestly amazed at how well received the last chapter was. Seems like I succeeded a bit in making Tifa's punch totally awesome after having her tossed around and beaten up for most of that match. You guys give me such detailed and encouraging reviews, and I love to read all your thoughts. It's so interesting to see how you all react to my writing! Thank you so much, all of you. I do hope I can continue to impress you all. _

_I wanted to add more to this chapter, really – like more interaction with Reno, who's introduced here, but it already reached an unfathomable word count, so I apologize deeply for that. In any case, I hope this chapter is at least a slight change in tone from previous ones, happier somewhat. On another note, I found it vaguely amusing that, while typing this, I accidentally switched the letters of 'Angeal's' name to read 'Angela' at one point. Seems like I swiftly gave him a sex-change. Tell me your thoughts, I love to hear them._

* * *

**Chapter VII ~ Simple Enjoyment ~  
**

A smile remained present on Tifa's face after her showdown with Genesis, despite how sore she felt from the tough beating she got. She felt such extreme elation, and until that moment, she didn't realize how unfamiliar it felt, how its long absence turned it into a complete stranger. Ever since Goddess Minerva and Aeris sent her back in time to correct the unfortunate tragedies which occurred, she thought she left her own happiness behind in that other world as payment for the opportunity to save everyone, bidding a permanent farewell so commonly found in sorrow-ridden endings of adventure stories. But, she realized, perhaps those stories hadn't lied when the characters uttered seemingly meaningless, shallow statements like meeting again, letting go of their happiness and friends with that farewell, with some small hope that they would meet again. Perhaps the heroes who said goodbye to their friends found their happiness again, elsewhere in other lands.

Or perhaps they never had her negative mindset which she knew remained set in stone, unchangeable across all the time and ages of the world. And, she knew, her situation was more than a fable that mothers read to their children at night. In reality, wounds scabbed over time, and those scabs cracked open again at the slightest pressure, over and over again, leaving permanent scars, pink, raw and ugly in a failed attempt to patch up a bleeding heart.

In some cases, there would be no healing, only a constant flow of blood and screams of pain and agony. Like Cloud, she thought, who never healed at all. The wounds caused by Sephiroth's insanity, of Zack and Aeris' deaths, continued to pour and his heart continued to cry. Tifa never understood him after that. Cloud grew into a stranger before she knew it, riddled with too many scars, just like her happiness, and no matter how she clung to him, he always escaped like air torrents through the gaps between her fingers.

Shaking her head, Tifa walked back to her room, clinging on to whatever light visited her, even if that required her to rejoice over getting one punch on Genesis. One punch, she thought, on a man like Genesis Rhapsodos, meant a lot. Master Zangan would praise his fighting technique, the combination of his fluid movements and speed gave birth to a power so terrifying and deadly that it turned him into a bringer of death on the battlefield.

She opened the door to her room and met with the sight of her roommates about to take a stroll out in the town wearing cleanly ironed shirts and leather jackets. Taioh placed his wallet in the pocket of his trousers and turned to her, a wide grin on his face. "Hey, Teef – you look happy, though you do look a little worse for wear." He winced, looking at the bruises she suffered from her tussle with Genesis. "But it went well, didn't it?"

"Genesis took me on as his student," she told them. And really, that punch of hers did wonders for her failing strength and resolve in this timeline, she noted. Tifa finally felt like she accomplished something useful, not just for her current goal, but through her entire life. Nearly always, she felt like the shadow, never climbing the tallest of mountains and never claiming victory over the most unreachable feats. But now, she felt as if she finally stepped on the first stone on a bridge full of them, a bridge which would take her to whatever end. Her life moved now and time thawed, no longer frozen on a section she didn't want to stay trapped in, a prisoner in a cage of ice. Grinning, she stated, "And so, I'm happy. I was nervous, but I guess everything paid off in the end."

"Cadet-hater Rhapsodos took you on as a student?" Kris exclaimed, so shocked, he dropped the keycard to the room on the floor with a resounding clang. "He's a demon – I swear. I heard those guys who made fun of you in the washroom about the size of your… _you-know-what_, were awarded one-hundred laps around this floor!"

She chuckled at the fact that Kris still wouldn't use the correct terms for male genitals and instead settled for childish, vague alternatives. Now that Tifa thought about it logically, it must have been those people who stole her clothes. And although she discouraged any mindset which thirsted for blood and vengeance, she couldn't help the small surge of satisfaction at the thought that they got what they deserved.

"Perhaps I misjudged you," Lucian added. "You must be at least marginally talented if one of the Firsts took you on as a student." He walked up to her though, and bent forward – just to make the difference in their height a bit more noticeable, much to Tifa's annoyance. Giving her a small smirk, just a little twitch of his lips, he then said, "I still think you're womanly though."

Tifa snorted, not feeling insulted, even though she knew she should have felt at least a little worried that someone could have found out her secret. The fact that someone even mentioned, not the fact that she looked like a girl, but was 'womanly' relieved her a bit even though it shouldn't have. Years of Cloud ignoring her, years of not even thinking of herself as a woman really left its mark on her, a permanent marring of a formerly scar-free surface. "Says the one who takes such good care of his long, beautiful hair," she chimed sarcastically.

"Wow, didn't see that one coming." Taioh whistled in response to the comment. "No one ever insults Lucian's hair – they're usually too intimidated."

Lucian frowned with displeasure and stated curtly, "Long hair does not a woman make. Sephiroth is the fiercest fighter, and like myself, he possesses long hair." He filled his tone to the brim with nothing but the utmost seriousness.

"Don't tell me," Taioh and Tifa stated simultaneously.

"You're a Sephiroth fanboy?" Kris finished untactfully and rather directly.

Unexpectedly, a large blush formed on Lucian's cheeks – frightful for Tifa who truly expected a snide comment from the man of some kind. But truly, despite how he talked and even though he obtained such grace and regality because of his upbringing, it showed how much of a boy he was, how similar to Cloud really because of his admiration for the _Silver Demon of Wutai_. "Shut up," he retorted half-heartedly, "didn't we say we were going out tonight? Are you coming or not?" he asked, looking at her with a glare.

"Of course," she found herself replying, despite his clear indication that he hoped for a refusal, just to tease him more.

And when he turned the other way and briskly walked out the door, the three of them inside the room looked at each other, a moment of silence between them before they burst out laughing at the unexpected development.

Funny enough, though she knew that the night for her probably brought a hefty sum of underage drinking with her roommates, she felt happy enough to do so. Tifa laughed at herself when she thought of how far she'd fallen – formerly a bartender who refused to serve alcohol to minors. But, she thought, she could call it celebratory drinking for her achievements. She got Genesis to recognize her in some way, a step closer to stop him from reaching out to the only option he thought available to him to save himself back in the old timeline, and she could proclaim a toast that she had friends around her and though they might not have been the same friends, they helped her capture some of her lost happiness in a bottle.

* * *

As expected, they travelled to a bar to get some drinks. Tifa expected them to go down to the slums, since she knew that people over there didn't care how old you were as long as you forked over the money for your drinks one way or another. Strangely enough, they instead went to a cozy, high-class pub on the plate instead – Tifa didn't know how they were to get in. They probably had some well-built bartender who could throw them out with a flick from one finger.

"Hey, I don't think we're going to be allowed to get any drinks here," Tifa voiced unsurely to the other three. They looked at her for a moment and chuckled.

"Are you kidding me? Use your Shinra ID – we're allowed to drink underage if we want," Taioh told her, grinning at her disbelieving look.

She should have expected it, considering the numerous perks that Shinra soldiers got that she was aware of. Cloud told her back when they were on the Highwind, while they talked about mundane things like usual just to keep their minds off of what was to come, that free healthcare for the soldier and the family they lived with had been one of the most popular reasons anyone joined Shinra – whether to become a soldier or a simple errand boy. Tifa agreed that a lot of families, both middle-class and lower-class, probably sent their children to study to become Shinra executives or soldiers for that very purpose.

A sharp pain penetrated Tifa's skull as another memory of Cloud's invaded. Although the feeling she got from the memories, she didn't think of as the least bit pleasant, it did make her feel like Cloud still stood by her, still taking care of her in his own strange way. And she liked to believe that at least a little bit, even though she knew deep down that the special care she desired from Cloud so immensely, he reserved in his heart for only Aeris.

"_Zack, are you sure we can drink here? You're not a minor, but I am," Cloud commented, frowning at the thought of breaking the law. He tried not to think about how everyone around him seemed so much older and really, fit to drink, unlike himself._

_Zack grinned and swung his arm around Cloud. "Chill out, Spike. Your Shinra ID basically means you can drink anywhere you want. It's a perk for us." He looked at the bartender for a moment before calling, "I'd like to order one gin and tonic for my buddy over here!"_

"_You got it, Zack! Anything for one of my most loyal customers," the bartender answered with a smile on his aged face. He combed through his white beard for a moment with his fingers before grabbing the bottles for the gin and tonic to mix the drink Zack wanted. Finishing his job speedily, he handed the glass to Zack who pushed it to Cloud. The bartender looked at Cloud's anxious face and laughed. "First time drinking isn't it?"_

"_Uh… yeah," Cloud replied eloquently, taking a sniff of the concoction curiously._

"_Spike, you're supposed to drink it, not sniff it," Zack joked. "But if you don't want to, I'm not going to pressure you into it, so don't worry about it." _

_Both the bartender and Zack watched Cloud as he took a sip, seemingly liking the taste, before he gulped the entire contents of the glass down. _

_The bartender frowned. "I think you should slow down, little guy. It's your first time drinking after all." He looked concerned and kept an eye on him until another customer called him. "Coming right up!" he answered._

_Zack also looked a bit worried when Cloud ordered more drinks. He felt a bit dizzy, but didn't think much of it when one drink turned into five, and then five into seven before his face looked horribly flushed. He took a huge gulp of his scotch before saying, "I feel happy!" He grinned and then reached up to ruffle Zack's hair. "You're an awesome friend, Zack!"_

"_Aw, thanks Spike," Zack replied, somewhat happy about the honesty that Cloud showed when he said everything through a drunken filter. He noticed then, that Cloud looked a bit sick. "Oi, chocobo – are you okay? You shouldn't have mixed so many drinks."_

"_I'm happy," he slurred, "but I also feel sick." He admitted this honestly before breathing in heavily, then letting it all out in the form of puke on Zack's shoe._

_Zack grimaced._

"Teef, are you okay? You look a bit pale…" Kris' voiced snapped her out of that memory shared by Cloud and Zack. The three of them stood in front of her, looking at her curiously, even Lucian though he stood a farther distance back.

"I'm fine," Tifa answered, trying to ignore the pain in her skull, a burning sensation almost as if her brain suffered the experience of being branded over and over again by a hot metal rod. She smiled a little weakly before saying, "Let's go, right? You said we can get in with those Shinra ID's, right?"

Lucian nodded. "We're allowed to drink with Shinra ID's. Come, let us go." He gestured for them to follow him as he opened the door to the pub and walked in. Tifa saw just how much stiffer his back was compared to normal and how his speech transformed to cut off anything unnecessary and show nothing but formality.

She could only think that Lucian used that method to deal with his embarrassment. Smirking, she followed behind him. It still amazed her that Cloud, the innocent boy from Nibelheim, actually became drunk when he was a minor due to an outing with Zack. Though really, she thought almost fondly, she couldn't think of anything less from the latter who Cloud admired so. Such peaceful times where they could all have fun and laugh with one another over seemingly stupid ordeals, Tifa wanted to keep alive forever.

Tifa looked at the four of them together now and thought of her past conversation with Zack who said he wanted to become a hero, her fight with Genesis, the lunch she had with the three Firsts, and everything her friends from AVALANCHE experienced with her. Those ties that bonded all of them together, she wanted to believe survived in all of their hearts across time.

* * *

The four of them picked a cozy looking corner to have their drinks in, a table surrounded by plush red seats. Looking at the inside now, Tifa concluded that rich people entered the pub quite a bit, seeing them look now as if they were in their natural environment; that and Shinra employees since the office building stood only a short distance away. Smaller, like most stores located on the plate, it still had a distinct air of classiness that she felt nostalgic thinking about. It reminded her of people like Rufus who could burn money in their spare time and still have more than enough money left over to spend on whatever they wished.

Lucian, nice enough to offer, paid for all of their drinks – though now that she thought about it, could have had ulterior motives. Everyone thanked him when the waiter came back with all their drinks on a black tray. Tifa smiled a little when the considered the fact that he only did so to make everyone stop mocking him – a bribe.

"So, how did you get your hair to look so well-kept, Lucian," Tifa joked. Lucian, as expected, narrowed his eyes when Taioh and Kris laughed.

A bribe, Tifa concluded, definitely a bribe.

They all drank and chatted amicably while ordering drinks when necessary, with the exception of Lucian who grumbled when anyone spoke to him – though still promising to pay. She wondered then, how bad Genesis' situation got near the end when he couldn't enjoy simple times like these, how terrible Sephiroth must have felt when he realized the truth about his own origins, how he was an apple amongst a group of oranges, alone and different, how Angeal felt when he was caught amongst his friends, torn like the pages of a worn book, with no way out. The thought that she let go of her fear for Sephiroth so easily, like she let a caged bird fly again by opening the door to its prison, frightened her - yet even so, it made her want to help all of them.

The sound of shattering glass startled all of them and silence permeated the pub. Everyone stared at one individual she recognized clearly by his blonde hair – obviously bleached, now that she could actually see the colour properly, not vaguely behind formerly muddied strands. He dropped his glass on the ground and along with it, all the alcohol in it. He frowned noticeably and looked impossibly red – the clear indication that his mental state was cloudy and alcohol took control of everything that came out of his mouth.

He reminded her of the hooligans who came to her bar back in the day and expected her to cater to their every wish, rude, unsightly, and far past the point of sobriety.

"_Listen," _he began with a pause for dramatic effect, "I ordered _vodka shots _not… whatever the hell this is…" He sniffed at the liquid and grimaced. His eyes narrowed into a glare as he spoke so condescendingly to the poor waiter who looked almost as if he would piss his own pants.

"B-but sir, you told me you wanted rum…." the waiter said nervously, shaking in his boots.

The clothes-thief growled at him intimidatingly and looked as if he were going to fly off his handle any minute, insisting the fact he ordered vodka.

"Ugh, there he goes again, causing trouble," Taioh commented, looking less than amused. "I thought he was done when he decided to spout bullshit about how your dick was small."

"Yeah, he really should mind his own business, even if your parts are small!" Kris added, frowning.

"Kris, what did I tell you about being tactful about the way you speak," Lucian chided. He looked displeased at Taioh and said, "Watch what you say. I don't think he appreciates us bringing it up all the time."

But Tifa knew they were only speaking without such care because they were tipsy. Besides, they hardly knew how close they were to the truth about her. Relief filled her when they said she didn't act like she had an extortionate amount of testosterone in her blood. Not like Barret, she thought, or Cid. She shuddered when she thought about acting like they did, cursing up a storm twenty-four hours a day – unknowingly raising their blood sugar all the while.

Her own mind felt a little fuzzy now and she couldn't control herself. Her motor controls seemed to be on autopilot. Only then did she notice all the glasses in front of _her _not anyone else, seemingly sitting there innocently. Hell, she had _a lot_ of alcohol tonight.

And the scene of that thief grated on her nerves – she found the way he treated that poor waiter inexcusable. Tifa slammed her fist down on the table with as much force as she could muster before getting up and approaching that bleached blonde moron, much to the shock of her roommates.

"Stop treating him that way you idiot." She glowered at him menacingly before pointing to the shattered glass on the floor. "_Pick it up_," Tifa ordered, speaking slowly in the hopes that it would get through his thick skull that he was being rude. The waiter looked up at her unsurely, almost as if he doubted that a guy her size would ever be able to take on anyone, let alone this clearly larger male.

Tifa felt like she was back at the bar, shoving horrid drunks out the door when they attempted to have full-on brawls in her presence, throwing sluggish punches at one another and cursing wildly at stupid things like one accidentally bumping into the other.

"Make me – _blushing schoolgirl,"_ he taunted. "I'm Ralph Montblanc. I don't have to pick anything up if I don't want to." He stuck his nose up in the air as if everyone around him were puny, insignificant insects.

A rich kid who grew up pampered and didn't know the meaning of the word respect. He reminded her an awful lot of Rufus, now that she thought about it, another rich male who believed the world revolved around him. She thought of Lucian then, another person who clearly grew up in a well-off family yet knew when to respect others, though he did come off a bit snide sometimes. Tifa wondered about the differences in their upbringings, so close together, yet so far, separated by dense forests and harsh, bumpy terrain, for one to grow up so nasty and the other, kind.

On another note, Tifa realized she would never again eat a Montblanc after meeting Ralph. "How old are you, five? I swear I'll never eat a Montblanc again after meeting you, you clothes-snatching scumbag."

"_Fuck you_," he retorted immaturely.

"No thanks," Tifa replied, feeling disgusted at the very thought.

Ralph's face lit up in fury and she knew it was him who made the first move to punch the living daylights out of her. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and she felt ready to give him a good beating back. Idly, she thought of how Yuffie would react if she knew that she participated in a drunken bar brawl. She could imagine her laughing outright at her now, never suspecting that Tifa would ever throw a punch triggered by inebriation.

And just when Tifa readied her hands to catch his fist and send a knuckle sandwich right at him, someone gripped her hand and Ralph's, stopping their fight instantly.

"How 'bout we all enjoy the drinks and chill out on the fighting, yo."

Tifa knew that distinct voice. She could recognize it anywhere.

* * *

Genesis sat across from Angeal and Sephiroth, and beside the puppy after the fight with Teef Lockhart, all of them lounging around in his exquisite apartment inside the Shinra HQ. The clock ticked as the silence dragged. He broke the news to them about the results of his little test of the boy's talents and everyone promptly quieted, only to look at him as if he suddenly turned into an alien.

Truly, he didn't believe that his friends would be so shocked that he took Lockhart on as a student – with exception of the puppy who didn't know who his student was. He remembered Angeal nagging at him when he first took on Zackary Fair as a student that he should search and find someone worthy to mentor as well. Of course, he did brush off Angeal's numerous wordy speeches about how taking on a student was _the honourable thing to do, _but that didn't mean he didn't listen. He did search – however poorly – for a student worthy of his efforts. He stood by the fact that all the time that passed had nothing to do with him, but more the lack of talent in each batch of cadets and that none of them understood the intricacies of LOVELESS.

"You didn't think it would happen?" Genesis snapped, frowning noticeably. "Angeal took on this puppy with no taste in literature as a student, so what is shocking about me taking on a student, hmm? At least _my_ student recognizes how much of a masterpiece LOVELESS is."

"Of course we didn't believe it would happen, Gen. You've been making excuses about taking on a student since the beginning," Angeal explained calmly. "But now that is has, we should welcome your student in some way. He must have impressed you."

"Not accepting any student unless they were interested in LOVELESS did seem a bit… unreasonable," Sephiroth added bluntly.

"And this doesn't have anything to do with me not liking LOVELESS," Zack pitched in, frowning at how Genesis always turned the conversation against him.

"It wasn't unreasonable, nor was I making excuses – I was merely finding somebody worthy of my tutelage," Genesis retorted. Then, he tuned to Zack and smirked a little, finding it all too fun to tease Angeal's puppy, a general, fun hobby of his that Sephiroth occasionally participated in. "A puppy wouldn't understand it, unfortunately. It's far too complex for a canine mind to handle."

"Indeed," Sephiroth said, a barely noticeable smile on his face.

Zack huffed and Genesis laughed outright, enjoying his reaction immensely. Indeed, he did respect Zack, not lying when he told Sephiroth and Angeal that cadets of his caliber were rare, the cream of the crop, in fact, but that didn't stop him from insulting and teasing him.

Two methods which greatly alleviated the stress of his daily life included teasing Zack and seeing the look of fright on the faces of young cadets as he strode down the hallways, prepared to make the next one who irritated him run laps, do push-ups, or deliver paperwork to Sephiroth, and as a result of extreme awe, reverence, and just as much fright as when they faced Genesis, _shit their pants. _It happened to one cadet – Sephiroth caught the smell and felt nauseous while Genesis laughed for weeks after the event. Needless to say, that one cadet could have soiled his reputation indefinitely for it. After a quick chat with Angeal, Genesis decided to act honourably and ensure confidentiality on the cadet's name.

"But," Zack started up again, ignoring the fact that Genesis and Sephiroth called him _stupid, _knowing that they weren't serious, "we should all go out for drinks. This seems like a good opportunity to, doesn't it?" He looked excited, grinning from ear to ear at the very thought. "None of are busy – and Seph, out of all of us, works _way_ too hard."

"Zack… last time you took us out to drink, you were so far gone you puked on an old man who happened to be sitting next to you," Angeal reminded gently, though he did look a bit sickened thinking about the event. Sephiroth also seemed to remember the event, but didn't show his reaction on the matter. "But, I do agree about Sephiroth. The higher-ups have been working him like mad lately."

"Drinks tonight sound like an agreeable idea – the place we go to, however far apart out visits seem to be, is rather nice after all," Genesis agreed.

Even if it people found it shallow, he didn't want to spend his time at night down at a bar below the plate in Wall Market, seeing undesirable customers – chronic alcoholics, violent gangsters, and prostitutes from the Honey Bee Inn. After what he saw when he went below the plate for Shinra business, he never wanted to drink there. It seemed far too bothersome – and he never considered himself the type to get into some unsightly bar fight. Not that he wouldn't win if he did happen to get into one, he thought idly.

They all reached a consensus of some kind and prepared to leave. Genesis brushed his fingers over his cheek, wincing as he did so. Lockhart did pack a punch, he thought, to cause a bruise to blossom like those on the skin of Banora Whites when they suffered damage, on someone who barely ever did bruise. He looked forward to teaching his student and seeing him passing the SOLDIER exam with flying colours. Genesis meant it when he said he would make Lockhart suffer if he didn't pass, no matter the fact it pleased him greatly that he looked at him with such interested eyes, eager to learn more about LOVELESS.

* * *

They all walked in silence to the pub, not feeling the chill of the night air on their skin. The Mako dulled his senses that way, he mused, even if he had become a fiercer fighter because of it. He held his gloved palm out, clenching and unclenching his fist as he thought about whether his dulled senses, the fact that whether or not he took off his gloves or not he still didn't feel in the least bit cold, made him odd in some way, lacking – somewhat less human. Shaking his head, he only thought about his position as a Shinra First-Class SOLDIER – a hero, no less human than anyone else.

Not looking at his surroundings much as he walked in silence, mildly hearing the incessant chattering of the puppy toward Angeal and Sephiroth, the feeling of someone bumping into him caught his attention immediately.

"Get out of my way!" the voice said, sounding angry and frustrated about something insignificant and moronic, probably.

Genesis looked down and noticed the cadet who stole his student's clothes in front of him, the one who he forced to run one-hundred laps around the floor some time ago and the one who he noted had the most terrible swordsmanship of any cadet he ever saw.

"Me, get out of your way? Do you not realize who you're speaking to, cadet?" Genesis spoke nonchalantly, a thinly veiled threat in his words. "Or shall I force you to run laps again?"

The cadet finally looked up at him and faced the terrible realization that he spoke to one of his commanding officers in such an insulting manner. And that the two other Firsts stood behind him along with a highly ranked Second-Class.

"S-sorry, sir," the cadet squeaked. Genesis wondered if he would keel over anytime soon. He certainly looked like he would. He could have sworn the cadet turned about three shades paler.

"What is your name, cadet?" he asked, with full intention to tell his teachers the next day to make him run a hell of a lot of laps and do extra push-ups. Perhaps that would also help in him becoming less of a pathetic fighter. Genesis felt the strangest bit content that his student had much more raw potential than this cadet in front of him. And he had manners enough to respect his superiors. Though, he chuckled at the thought, he barely believed it himself, but there always was the minute chance that Lockhart did have a crush on him. It happened to cadets before. And he, with his looks and talent with the sword, called that kind of attention a friend rather than a stranger.

"R-Ralph Montblanc, sir," he replied weakly.

"You may go," Genesis dismissed him, watching as he scurried away as quickly as possible, looking no different than a small rabbit running away from a horde of predators.

"Fuck it, I always run into Genesis Rhapsodos," Genesis heard. He made sure to note that he cursed him with such distaste and hate, and although that made Genesis delighted, he knew that conduct would not be appreciated by anyone else. That boy would get an extra five-hundred sit-ups for the next day. He never liked cowards anyway – and that Ralph Montblanc, he found no more than a spineless worm, like most cadets who came in the recruitment batches these days.

"Damn, does he have some beef with you, Gen?" Zack inquired curiously, wincing at the foul language spilling from the boy's lips as he left.

"No matter, Zackary – he is, I suspect, no more than a cadet Genesis finds fun to torture," Sephiroth stated, matter-of-fact. "There have been plenty of those during our years at Shinra." Angeal chuckled at the memories they experienced while all striving to become First-Classes together.

Even Genesis admitted, his actions had been a bit too cruel toward some of his fellow cadets back then – but he held no attachment to them and found their actions little more than immature at times. He always adequately planned his revenge and had fun seeing them get in trouble and suffer in a variety of ways. Revenge, the saying always said, is a dish best served cold after all.

Walking into the pub, he didn't expect to meet with the sight that he did – Teef Lockhart looking incredibly dizzy, sitting down on one of the comfy chairs Genesis so loved, with several people crowding around him. His eyes narrowed as he got closer. He recognized one of the people around her as the Turk, Reno. That fact didn't surprise him, as Genesis knew full well the man drank for a living. The Turks complained all the time about his filthy lifestyle and Genesis agreed fully with them. However, Reno rarely drank at high-end bars – only down in Wall Market. That little tidbit did puzzle him.

"Hey, Teef!" Zack called loudly, making several people stare at him. He looked concerned when he saw how sick Teef looked, how pale and nauseous he looked. "He looks sick – is he alright?"

"Puppy, you know my student?" Genesis questioned Zack.

"I met him earlier," Zack answered about to spring into some wild tale about what happened. He noticeably stopped himself, shaking his head then. "Wait, Teef's your student?" he paused, stopping himself yet again from ranting. "Uh, I mean, that's not the point right now. Teef looks really ill."

"He drank a bit too much, yo," Reno added helpfully. "I stopped him from getting in a fight, yo – but he managed to send projectile puke at the other cadet." He gestured with his hands, using one hand to symbolize Teef, and the other presumably Ralph, who Genesis met earlier. He definitely looked annoyed enough.

Genesis tried to hold in his revolt at the fact that his student did such a thing, but failed miserably. Vomit, everyone found disgusting, after all. But, he took one look at Teef and forgave him. No matter how unattractive he found puking in public, alcohol tended to cause nausea. And, he thought smugly, he did make Ralph pay in the worst way possible. Genesis looked at the other three and stated, "And who are these three?"

They looked a bit alarmed to see such high ranking SOLDIERs. Well, Genesis thought, his presence did have that effect on people. People passed him love-letters nearly daily, after all. Apparently, though plenty of people feared and abhorred him, they often liked him equally as much.

"Uh, we're Teef's roommates," one answered, smiling unsurely. "I'm Taioh," he started and then pointed at his friends – a stupid looking one, and another with hair as long as Sephiroth's, "and these two are Kris and Lucian. It's nice to meet you – First-Class Rhapsodos and Hewley, General Sephiroth and Second-Class Zack Fair."

"You're Teef's roommates? That's so awesome!" Zack cut in, momentarily forgetting about Tifa who looked quite ready to puke again if need be.

"I feel sick…" Teef slurred, stunning Genesis who didn't think the man had been awake until that moment.

"We should quit the chit-chat and figure out what to do with him. It is not wise to continue our drinking outing in this situation," Sephiroth advised.

Angeal nodded in agreement. "We should take him back. He must be suffering right now. It would only be honourable to take care of him in his moment of weakness."

At that moment, Genesis did have a right mind to cut in and comment on what a goody-goody Angeal always acted like – mouthing off about dreams and honour. But then, he thought of their reason for coming out today. Though mainly, all of them wanted to celebrate with him about taking on a student, they also wanted to go out to alleviate Sephiroth of some of his burden and stress from working, allow him to let loose and unwind, actually relax, breathe, and with each breath, feel less like he would pass out from work, though that scenario remained highly unlikely for the General. With that thought in mind and the small thought that he had to be responsible for the student he chose, he decided to act bold and noble, attempt to be considerate.

Genesis sighed. "I suppose I will take him back and watch over him." When Angeal looked about to offer to assist him in his brave feat, Genesis cut him off, "I can do it just fine. I took him on as a student, I should take care of him. Sephiroth," Genesis looked pointedly at the man, "you stay here and relax."

They all looked at him in acceptance then. "You think you can carry him, yo?" Reno cut in. He then smirked a little slyly before commenting, "Or are you gonna give him a piggy-back ride, yo?"

"I will carry him," Genesis bit back, not looking amused. "Piggy-back rides are horrid." He looked at Teef then and almost sympathized with the pain he must have felt. He picked up his student then, one arm under his knees, the other supporting his back, noting just how light he seemed in comparison to how an average male his age should have been. Teef cuddled up to him in his half-dreaming, half-awake state and Genesis wondered if he wanted to do that all along, with a small, amused twitch of his lips.

"Take care of our roommate for us, First-Class Rhapsodos," Kris exclaimed happily, giving him a small wave.

"Stay safe, Gen – don't wander into any alleyways or bad areas of town," Angeal warned, seeming every bit like a mother-hen.

"Angeal, he's not a toddler," Sephiroth responded, thoroughly amused at the affronted look on Genesis' face by even telling him such a thing. "Regardless, stay safe, Genesis."

"I'll be going then. Don't miss me too much. _Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return_." Genesis nodded at all of them, then departed through the doors and toward the Shinra building, the light cadet in his arms. He always had been one to follow his feelings, and those feelings compelled him now to help his student who stupidly drank too much. He thought of how Reno described his vomit as 'projectile puke' that hit Ralph and laughed, the sound travelling into the night as smoothly as birds cutting swiftly through air. "Amusing, aren't you, Teef Lockhart," he whispered. "Quite a fine addition to my life if I do say so myself."

Yes, a very fine, fascinating addition to his life.

* * *

_Words: 6 279_


	8. Avoiding Flowers

**Tempus' Paladin**

_Written by Whimsical Symphony_

_Finally got to updating again. University has been a pain – so much more of a workload compared to first year. I do hope you'll like this chapter. I don't know how to feel about certain parts like the final scene and the second training scene with Genesis. I think I felt more happy with the beginning portions rather than the end. I welcome all your comments – good, bad and ugly._

_I just noticed how strange this chapter seemed – depressing, happy, sad – moods from all over the spectrum. I think my favourite portion to write was comment Genesis makes about grey hairs and Tifa's reaction._

* * *

**Chapter VIII ~ Avoiding Flowers ~**

When she awoke, her head hurt terribly, as if someone actively took some sort of blade and attempted to separate her skull into two. It burned and pulsated like her heart jumped there sometime during her sleep, warning her about some sort of impending danger – making her head feel heavier and heavier, like lead, so she found it nearly impossible to lift her head from the pillow she currently rested her head on.

Tifa vaguely remembered going to catch a drink with her roommates and seeing Ralph Montblanc, the irritating idiot who felt it necessary to give a server a hard time. However, besides waltzing up to him to give him a piece of her mind, everything in her head churned around in an indescribable mess of a failed dish, a blur like a landscape from the window of a car while moving. Looking around her weakly, she didn't recognize her surroundings. The nice bed and the antique furniture like the vanity and cream coloured couch certainly didn't seem like the barracks.

Sitting up slightly, her head pounded more, a rhythmic, strangely numbing experience that reminded her why she stayed away from alcohol. After the fun finished, after she did whatever she did, all her thoughts that plagued her on a near regular basis came back to haunt her with a vengeance, like a blanket always covering her, making her colder instead of warmer, not shielding her, but smothering her. It trapped her in a dark place with not the slightest bit of light to keep her company – only her thoughts reminding her that she was alone.

Tifa didn't even have the energy to panic as she looked beneath the red covers and with relief, noted her clothes to be the same as those she wore when she went out. She hoped that meant no one decided to undress her and found she really didn't have the right _parts_ to be qualified for the Shinra military.

"Hmm, you're awake I see," a voice interrupted her train of thoughts, never-ending, spiraling into some pit of despair she wanted to make disappear, but couldn't. Looking up, she saw Genesis standing at the doorway, a glass of water in his hands. He walked over to her and held the glass out. Tifa took it and greedily drank from it. Her throat felt like a desert, so scratchy, parched and painful – not to mention her breath, she recognized, still smelled like alcohol – and like a more disgusting substance, she noted, tasted suspiciously like the aftertaste of vomit. "Drink as much water as you can. Your body is horribly dehydrated. Your events last night were fascinating in a strange way."

"Did you take me back here?" she asked cautiously. She wanted to ask what she did that he found so amusing that he would chuckle under his breath. But, at the same time, humiliation crept up from the bottom of her stomach like a predator stalking its prey, crouching low, hiding behind a thicket.

"Indeed. You must be happy considering your undying love for me," Genesis prattled on, ignoring her snort, an effort of stifling her laughter. "However, I hate to inform you that you look absolutely miserable right now."

"Well, naturally," Tifa deadpanned, turning to him with a scowl. "My head feels like terrible. And I probably stink."

"Of course your head probably hurts," Genesis told her, taking back the glass from her and putting it on the night table. "What idiotic logic roped you into drinking so much? You puked on another cadet… what was his name again…" He paused to think about it for a moment, only remembering the cadet as that one whose swordsmanship, from a comparative standpoint, seemed no better than a two year old brandishing pots and pans from his mother's kitchen, attempting to slay imaginary dragons, swinging the metal utensils around wildly. Then, he remembered, the cadet told him his name. He remembered the feeling of pride that his student, dear Teef Lockhart, puked on him, projectile fashion. "Ah, yes – Ralph Montblanc."

Tifa mulled on his comment for a moment before breaking out in laughter, forgetting her previous pain – her thoughts about Cloud, now that the alcohol didn't muddle her experiences together anymore, turning them into some foreign language she couldn't read.

She supposed it must have been unappealing, to puke on another cadet, but she felt strangely triumphant, as if Ralph Montblanc had gotten what he deserved. And, she thought, perhaps that logic which drove her to drink so much last night, had some perks to it besides making her forget about everything for a little while, making her able to laugh with friends as she did on the Highwind, during her journey with them so long ago. Maybe it also forced her to get to know people in this timeline, get closer to her roommates, get closer to Genesis Rhapsodos with whom the result of her mission rested on.

Without Genesis changing his decision, without feeling like he only had that one option, no one would turn out any better than they had before. It still amazed her that when she looked at him, that this man would become desperate for lie, feeling it slipping away from him slowly, uncatchable like a bird flying away freely, cutting through the air with no binds attached to it. His hands could touch its tail feathers and only feel it slip again once more. In that sense, Tifa pitied him. He's make the decision to bring everyone else down with him if his salvation couldn't be reached. A strange sort of compassion welled within her for him.

"Well enough to laugh, are you?" Genesis asked, amused. "I suppose that is a good thing, because I'm not letting you rest today, Teef Lockhart." He smirked and tilted her chin upward with his fingers, stroking her bottom lip in an effort to tease her then. This cadet's lips, he thought, also felt soft and full like a woman's. "You won't be resting until the latest hours of the night for payment for this small _inconvenience_. It's only fair." He leant his head forward, closer to hers, and let his warm breath fan over her own lips.

When Tifa glared at him and that same flush he remembered from their match drifted across her cheeks, like a tea stained tablecloth, the colour seeping through fabric ever so wonderfully, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Stop teasing me, sir."

"Hmm, I never noticed this – you have no need to call me sir anymore, isn't that right?" Genesis mused thoughtfully, moving his fingers to his cheek, brushing his student's soft skin before removing his touch completely. "I will give you the honour of calling me Genesis. Or Gen if you feel like calling me pet names." He paused for a moment, examining the smile that surfaced on Teef's face and having the strange feeling in his own chest that he wanted to see it more. He wondered about the irrationality of his own thoughts, and wondered about why Teef Lockhart seemed so morose at times, like before he walked into the room to check up on him – as if he were caught up in a house full of mirrors, replaying some traumatic event from his life over and over, repeatedly, and he couldn't see anything but that, his own painful reflection from the past refusing to shatter. Then, he supposed, perhaps he thought too much. After all, Teef smiled now and seemed to have energy enough to glare at him for his teasing. Continuing, he said, "But, to inform you, I was not teasing. I will not let you sleep. We're training today. You did agree to be my student, after all, regardless of the fact that I would have forced you to anyway. SOLDIER Exams will come before you know it, and you do understand," he told her mischievously, "that I will _punish _you if you don't pass." Seeing her flush deeper he chuckled. "Thinking dirty thoughts? I thought I told you I don't date men."

"I apologize, Genesis. My love for you has me thinking all these inappropriate thoughts – I truly can't help it, and calling you pet names will only make my feelings stronger. I'm afraid I'll have to stick with Genesis," Tifa told him sarcastically, frowning. Calling him Genesis gave some sort of relief to her, gifted in a nice package, like back in those days when AVALANCHE used to give each other gifts on holidays – all except Yuffie who ended up attempting to steal them. That feeling of nostalgia, no matter how painful, she kept close to her heart, in the deepest recesses, where all her most important treasures lay locked without a key.

By calling him Genesis she grew closer to him and she didn't feel so alone – regardless of if she knew him in the past or not – his teasing made her laugh, made her forget. It reminded her of that day she talked to Zack in this timeline and found he hadn't changed at all. Her stomach grumbled loudly then, disturbing the silence in the room. Tifa wondered when she last ate a proper meal.

"What a shame. Hearing you call me Gen would have amused me greatly. I suppose you are starving, so your love for me will have to wait," he teased, about to leave the room. "Go get changed back in your room, and do whatever else necessary as quickly as possible, then meet me back up here. We'll eat lunch, and then your Hell begins with training. If you procrastinate, I'll hear about it," he once again threatened nonchalantly, before giving her a smirk and disappearing through the doorway.

"You won't get any chances to punish me," Tifa told him confidently before getting out of the bed. Ignoring the pain in her skull, she walked toward the elevator to make it to her room, admiring Genesis' nice taste of interior decoration as she did so.

Tifa wanted to learn from Genesis, more so than just for the sake of her mission, she knew his power. Any tutelage from him, she knew, would be valuable for her. Getting lunch with him pleased her as well. Perhaps then she'd be able to stop everything, holding back the avalanche before ice and snow tumbled forward and crushed all of them under their weight.

* * *

By the time Tifa returned to Genesis' flat in the Shinra building and knocked on the door, he prepared a meal for them with quite a nice smell that reminded her of home – some fancy pasta, wine, and a basket full of Banora Whites. It reminded her of times in the Seventh Heaven and times in the Highwind she cooked for everyone with Aeris.

Then, when she died, Tifa cooked alone for everyone. Yuffie helped every so often, but whenever they had their meals, an unspoken prayer took place where they all thought about Aeris and Cloud shut off his speech almost completely, not looking at her, but rather behind her as if he could see Aeris smiling at him, a phantom always with him like a guardian angel, and as if he smelled the flowers from her church which, to him, he thought of as home. To Tifa, meals became more painful, as if her heart burned with a flame she failed to extinguish. Every time he looked elsewhere, she knew he barely acknowledged her presence and as a result, she yearned for him more.

A musician plucked her heart's strings slowly like a harp, a painful song which stung her every time, hurt her every time, but he never heard - instead listening to Aeris' song which they all heard so well despite its distance. Aeris held him so strongly even though her physical form didn't exist anymore. In some world belonging only to them, in a field full of flowers, roots bound him to her and a large body of water and of Tifa's own memory of Cloud, wreathed in flame, separated Tifa from him. She knew not to approach him anymore, she knew that if she did, she'd die – yet even now when that Cloud, not written in the pages of history anymore, needed her help, she let herself become engulfed by that flame which ate away at her heart. Tifa no longer wanted to see him broken, didn't want to see that innocence within him wither away from lack of care, didn't want to see weeds grow in place of the flowers, destroying him, instead.

"I didn't know you could cook," Tifa stated, in an effort to break free from the chains that bound her so tightly, suffocating her. She sat in a chair across from Genesis who flipped the pages of his LOVELESS book. Indeed, imagining Genesis, such a man who spent so long on his appearance daily and seemed so prim and proper, and so _prissy_, useful at household chores of any kind, surprised her.

Genesis shut his book and poured himself a glass of wine. "Food in the cafeteria is terrible. I only learned how to cook once I became SOLDIER and received my own kitchen." He looked at her empty glass, then frowned. "Ah yes, I had forgotten that alcohol of any kind isn't good for you." He got up from his seat and poured boiling water from his kettle into a small teacup, preparing some tea for her. Setting it town in front of her, he then said, "Well, taste it. It's a nice blend of oranges and cranberries. It's a shame, but next time you can look forward to some traditional Banoran wine."

It did smell nice, Tifa thought, and when she took a sip, it filled her chest and her stomach with warmth, as well as soothing the headache slightly, as if bandaging it for her with the care that a mother gave to her child. "It's very nice." Then, a bout of guilt surfaced within her. Genesis took care of her since yesterday and she didn't give him a thank you because of her own forgetfulness. "Thank you for taking care of me," Tifa told him sincerely.

"It is no problem. I took you on as a student, so it is my responsibility to care for you," Genesis explained, clearly quite proud of himself, however. "You should eat up. Today's training isn't going to be easy." He sat back down and served himself some of the pasta and took a sip of wine. "If you continue attempting feats like getting this drunk, you're going to give me grey hairs."

Even though he smiled pleasantly at her, only a chill remained in her, a flash of cold air that made the hairs on the back of her arms stand on end and for fear to bubble like the boiling water Genesis removed from his kettle, evaporating into a mist which embraced her body cruelly. Grey hairs, he said, then, she thought, would come sickness and weakness and the very breaking of every bit of strength he prided himself upon, almost like the slow rotting of produce left in the refrigerator for too long.

"You won't get grey hairs, Genesis, I promise," Tifa responded to him, trying to force a joking tone into her voice, but apparently failing miserably, as Genesis looked at her rather curiously.

She wanted to save him and stop him from degenerating into an unrecognizable person, so different than his flamboyant, confident self now. She wanted him to always be able to recognize his reflection in the morning when he looked at it, and wanted him to always know himself well, able to draw a map, with experienced cartographic skills, of all his feelings, all his sorrow and despair, happiness and relaxedness. And, she didn't want him to face a doom that shouldn't have been forced upon him by the eternal guillotine that stood formidably above a wrongly convicted criminal with no chance of escape. No one should have had to face that.

While all those thoughts ran rampant in Tifa's mind, Genesis only ate silently and wonder how important the colour of his hair was to the cadet. He knew, of course, the beauty of his hair now, but wondered how Teef Lockhart's thoughts about his appearance would change if he happened to get a grey hair or two.

* * *

Tifa's lungs hadn't hurt so much for such a long time. Even when she trained with Master Zangan, she never felt like her they would shrivel up from a sheer lack of air, going from grape to raisin in a mere second. Her legs felt heavy, as if authorities placed her in a prison and chained large spheres of lead to her ankles, expecting her to run and function like normal.

"Come now, you're slowing down far too much. Quicken the pace," Genesis' voice resounded in the large training room they currently resided him. He sat on a large chair, crossing one leg over the other, looking quite amused at her current predicament, her flushed cheeks, how she looked almost certain to collapse. "I thought you said I would have no reason to punish you."

Tifa panted, holding her knees, willing herself to continue. She'd been through much worse, back when Sephiroth summoned Meteor, back when they all used Aeris' death as fuel to get their revenge on him – when she didn't feel even the slightest bit of pity for him, only anger and fear for what he did to everyone, Aeris, Cloud, herself and her Papa. Now she fought for a different purpose: to save him and to save everyone involved, to right all the wrongs. A parasite housed itself within her since then, laying a seed of negativity in optimism every time she thought of a new fuel to use, to find some kind of drive to keep her moving steadily, at a constant pace, without thoughts and memories slowing her down. She found it difficult to remember the condition of her former bod, so much stronger, toughened up like worn hiking boots from constant training and use. Now when she used her body, she knew what to do, but found it hard to accomplish such feats, like a theorist attempting to experience an event after reading a how-to book.

"I'm trying, but you made me run more than the Torturer ever did," Tifa struggled to say, watching his relaxed form with disdain while she attempted to catch her breath. "I thought you were going to teach me swordsmanship."

Genesis clucked his tongue and approached her. He gave her a small, stainless steel water bottle he placed beside his seat. She took it gratefully. "Do you know the trick to becoming a powerful swordsman?" Tifa didn't answer and waited for him to continue, which he did, she thought, mostly because he liked to hear his own voice. "There is no trick at all," he told her amusedly, "it's the mastery of all the basics – in this case, increasing strength and stamina. What do you think mastering the basics will do for you as a swordsman?"

Zangan told her similarly once. And right now, when she paid careful attention to Genesis, who seemed in a better mood than usual, not irate or annoyed, he gave off vibes of a good teacher. Tifa tried to answer him with the best possible response she pieced together in her mind, from all sections of her experience, documents from the deepest archives. "I can wield my sword without getting tired because of the weights on my arms, I can improve my footwork by wearing the weights," she gestured to the weights at her ankles, "and I can increase my speed."

"As expected of a person of my choice," Genesis complimented. "But, one of the major factors as well as all that is that you can pull more dangerous maneuvers when your speed improves. Using a sword won't be nearly as tiring either. You can torture as many opponents as you wish." Tifa wondered how much he enjoyed students fearing them and others becoming tamed under his prowess for the blade. Seeing the look of bliss upon his face, she suspected he enjoyed it very much and as a result, never denied his prevalent sadism. He gestured toward the bracer he wore on his hand and pointed toward the filled slots. "Do you know what these are? If you don't, I fear I'll have to revoke your status as my student," he told her frowning ever-so-slightly.

"Materia," Tifa answered readily. She couldn't help the slight feeling of annoyance that he suspected she didn't even know what Materia looked like.

"Correct, Materia," Genesis repeated, looking proud of her progress. "Materia usage can be extremely taxing on the body. It takes quite an effort to use wisdom of the Ancients that wouldn't otherwise be available to you," he explained. Reaching out his hand, he cast powerful fire magic on one of the punching bags on the far wall, watching as it turned to ash from sheer force, burning, meeting a terrible end as she so supposed many of Genesis' enemies had. He didn't look out of breath at all, not in the least bit tired and his skin didn't shine with a slick layer of uncomfortable, sticky sweat like hers did. "With the proper training, Materia can be used with ease. Perhaps one day, you might be quite capable with it." Finished with his explanation, he looked at her smugly and said, "Though, not as great as myself. Finish your runs and then attend the classes that you can. If you slow down the pace this time, I might have to… do something rather regrettable." He smiled slyly at her and teasingly brushed her shoulder with his hand, a gesture that, to most cadets, could instill fear so securely like a postage stamp on a letter. "We wouldn't want that, now would we, Lockhart?"

"I understand." And she did – though partially because she didn't want to experience whatever he had in store for her if her performance didn't match his standards. With a renewed effort, she continued to run like Genesis told her to for her new goals, for her purpose in joining SOLDIER, as Zack and Taioh reminded her that day when she had been so nervous. No one had written fate in stone now, and it was hers to change, her turn to become the playwright and choose the actors of her production – but she only had one chance and if she failed, no tickets would sell properly, the seats of the theatre would be empty, not a trace of a spectator around.

"SOLDIER Exams are in a month. _Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess. We seek it thus, and take to the sky,"_ Genesis quoted with practiced ease. He went then to sit on the chair again and took out his LOVELESS novel, determined to discover new elements of style and symbolism for the day.

To obtain the power she needed, to grasp it with her own two hands tightly, like a relic found in the deepest treasure rooms of an ancient dungeon, she needed to master the basics and get closer to Genesis Rhapsodos. Anything to save everyone – Genesis, Sephiroth, Angeal, Zack. And anything to save Cloud. "You won't have a reason to punish me at all, don't worry."

Tifa heard his hum of acknowledgement before he spoke more of LOVELESS with a voice of silk, soothing her as she ran.

* * *

Her thoughts, as expected, came back with a vengeance when she attempted to take a nap after classes. The last time Rayleigh helped had been some time ago. She pushed away those memories which crept upon her now slowly, like an intruder in the dark transferring some unspoken fear to the air around her as particles trembled and soft breath, a presence in her mind, mingled within her own.

Tifa stumbled to the washroom and washed her face with cool water in an attempt to drive away what she just saw. Her breath came out in small puffs and her hands shook like a small earthquake set off in each one and all her muscles danced to an unsynchronized, terrifying beat. Tifa knew now just how much Genesis' pain lay deeply embedded within him, a fungus growing on someone who seemed no more than an animated corpse with one goal in mind set on fire by a cruel necromancer.

_Zack finished with Bahamut tiredly, then stared at the man in front of him whose expression seemed more than unreadable._

Tifa pulsed with pity then when she saw Zack's expression as he struggled for something to say to his former mentor's friend – for even if Genesis showed nothing on that face of his, only pulled his lips into a tight line and looked at Zack, she knew he felt pain.

But, so different did he seem then, not the teasing, flamboyant person, so full of life, she knew now. Tifa didn't want him to become the person she saw in Zack's memories who seemed willing to do anything. Even kill his parents, like she saw earlier, as backlash and revenge against Shinra who destroyed every semblance of humanity he held so dear to him within the core of his soul, the very essence of his individuality.

"_How could you use a summon creature! What happened to your pride as a SOLDIER?" Zack yelled at Genesis, wanting to find some kind of answer, wanting to find some kind of resolution for the conflict brewing within him. _

"_We are monsters." Zack looked at him confusedly as he said this almost bitterly. "We have lost both our dreams and our pride." _

_Shinra took it all, Shinra did everything – Genesis' unspoken words remained. SOLDIER, the elite fighting force of the company, the scientists created. He thought that his humanity never stood a change because of Shinra._

_His doubts spread to Zack like a disease with unquenchable thirst, wanting to make everyone involved whether directly or indirectly, suffer. _

He thought of himself as a monster. Sephiroth soon adopted that way of thinking, as did Zack and Angeal and all the people who followed Genesis to defection. Thinking that, no, believing it with all his heart, Tifa wondered how he bore to look at himself daily, watching himself grow closer and closer to death, wanting to save himself, yet at the same time, wanting himself to die because of that monster he believed ensnared him and chained him. Deciphering why he thought all of that and standing within his self-hatred saddened her. If Tifa thought of herself as a monster, if she degenerated, the ability of self-preservation, to even try to save herself, she believed was little more than questionable.

Having that memory of Genesis from Zack inject itself within the folds of her own, fitting in so seamlessly like the work of a shadow writer within an author's text, she lost the desire to sleep, fearing it'd come back with all its friends, a mob demanding to show her new, interesting facts about what occurred then, what happened, how people coped with themselves. Those memories forced her to lock herself within her own home and not go outside. Tifa recognized the low level of her own coping strategies – how pushing everything away and covering all unwanted blemishes with gauze worked so rarely now. Suddenly, by walking around in this timeline, interacting with its people, she came to terms with her situation and realized that whatever she avoided only grew vengeful and would, eventually, bite her in the ass.

If, she thought, she ever met Cloud, someone she so desperately avoided with all her strength, her heart would break. He lived somewhere in this building as well. _This_ Tifa never belonged with _that _Cloud, yet she tried so hard to save him, always.

"Come on, I can't think like that," Tifa whispered, holding her face in her hands. "I'm the only one who can do this." The only one, she recognized that clearly. No one else had the power to assist her even if they wanted. "Maybe I should take a walk."

Walking outside, breathing in fresh air, she knew would lighten the heaviness in her head, weighing down her rationality, everything she needed to have. But then, she remembered.

Air in Midgar was _never_ fresh.

* * *

Regardless of how the air in Midgar was riddled with pollution – dust, dirt and ash, she went out that night to reminisce on old days that used to be hers and to force that vision she saw to disappear. When she observed, Zack's emotions filled her as if they were hers. Zack's sorrow, Gensis' sadness she didn't feel, but knew, and Cloud's feelings which, like spring rain, fell in droplets on her skin, they all exhausted her.

As expected, she couldn't see the stars from Midgar, not like she could in Nibelheim back when she used to watch them with Cloud. Instead they lay shrouded by a thick mist. Shinra employees hurried this way and that – wealthier people as well, who could afford to live above the plate, not below where dreams died along with the body so noticeably, so swiftly in poor families who tried to put food on the table – a simple glass of milk, ever so unnecessarily expensive.

"You think anyone will buy flowers over here? You're kidding yourself, girly. No one cares for that shit."

"That's not true at all. Flowers rarely grow here in Midgar, so I'm certain many people would love to see them at the least."

Tifa immediately snapped in on the conversation, recognizing the second voice. Her mind ran a blank when she saw who it was having a conversation with another man who seemed to be mocking her. She never changed all these years, even though she didn't have that distinctive pink ribbon of hers and wore a white dress instead. She looked younger, and perhaps a little uneasy. Her smile still radiated that same kindness as fully as light from a candle.

Aeris stood in front of her, smiling at the man who rudely told her to take her selling elsewhere because no one cared. Tifa felt tears pricking at the corner of her eyes when she remembered how the woman died trying her hardest to save them, her expression relaxed, almost as if she knew what doom stood in front of her: doom, like so many in Gaia, that came even though no one should have had to face it as they did, scythe in hand, extending an arm out to them, bringing them to join Lifestream, the collection of souls and consciousness of everyone. Aeris faced it all along, didn't even deny her fate, didn't struggle against the bonds which held her, those which stemmed from her existence as an Ancient.

Aeris' flowers brought hope to a place with almost none, life to a place that only seemed like a barren wasteland. Aeris' smile allowed all of them on the Highwind to also smile. Without her, the centerpiece, the most crucial puzzle piece, disappeared forever.

The man laughed outwardly at her answer and rammed himself into her flower cart. It hit the floor, toppling on its side, and dropping all its contents which rolled around in the dust. Those vibrant colours became a little more dirtied, tarnished.

"Hey, that was unnecessary, wasn't it? If you didn't want flowers, you could have just left and not bothered!" Tifa found herself shouting at the man before she even knew why. The man simply scoffed them and left a slightly dejected Aeris behind. She immediately rushed forward and began to help, even with the painful knowledge that Aeris wouldn't recognize her at all, would simply treat her as someone she just met, giving her the basic niceties without knowing all that they'd been through together, that Tifa witnessed her death.

"Thank you, sir," Aeris told her sincerely as they cleaned up the flowers and set the cart back upright. She laughed shakily before mentioning, "I suppose I'm not ready to sell flowers up on the plate yet. This is my first time… and I suppose now I know why I've always been so unsure about it…" she trailed off and clasped her hands while looking at the people around them, ignoring the scene, ignoring the flowers she saw as beautiful. "People here seem so busy."

"That guy was just an ass," Tifa told her encouragingly. "Don't worry; I know just how special flowers in Midgar are."

Her face lit up then and Tifa felt comforted just a little, having someone she knew so well beside her, even if that person didn't know who she was. Aeris gasped and then said, "Oh! Excuse me, I never introduced myself. I'm Aeris Gainsborough and as you can see," she chuckled, "I sell flowers that I grow."

Tifa shook the hand that Aeris extended toward her, that hand she promised herself to stop from accepting the welcoming, outstretched hand of doom. "Teef Lockhart. Nice to meet you, Aeris."

Yes, she wanted to save Aeris and everyone else. Avoiding them wouldn't do her any good. She had to face them head on, serve as their shield, become the shadowed ally that no one spoke of. Even if no one recognized anything, even if only she truly knew the reason for all her actions and all her efforts, she had to. Gaia rested in her palms. If she couldn't do it, who could?

* * *

_Words: 5 596_


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